I’ve been crazy busy the last couple of weeks. Between being swamped at work and having a crazy schedule at home, I feel like I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

If you’ve never seen that, let me just tell you – it’s really something.

To say I’ve been frazzled lately would be putting it mildly, and tonight it really hit home just how frazzled I’ve been. And what has all my rushing over the last couple of weeks gotten me? Achy muscles and tension headaches.

I sat down after supper to get some work done on my computer, and Cricket insisted I watch a movie with him. It wasn’t just any movie; it was a movie he’d brought home from school that was full of pictures from his year in kindergarten. Pictures of him and his classmates faded in and out to the sounds of Randy Newman and friends, and I couldn’t help smiling. I’d seen some of the pictures on Facebook, but others were new.

Still, after about five minutes, I started getting antsy. I had things to do, things that wouldn’t get done if I put them off much longer. And somewhere in the middle of “Thank God for Kids” it occurred to me – I need to slow down.

I heard another song then, but this one played only in my head:

I’m in a hurry to get things done,
I rush and rush until life’s no fun.
All I really gotta do is live and die,
But I’m in a hurry and don’t know why.

My Thumper will start kindergarten in only a couple of months, while Miss Tadpole heads off to high school. It seems like just yesterday was her first day of kindergarten, while he wasn’t yet a gleam in our eyes. If I don’t slow down a little bit, I’m going to miss an awful lot.

So in honor of slowing down, here – have a story on me. Thumper loves to read stories, and here he is at three years old, reading Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle. If you know the story, you may be able to decipher what he’s saying. And if you don’t, well, it’s still awfully cute. 🙂

What kinds of things remind you to stop and smell the roses?

(c) 2017. All rights reserved.