Noticing

Yesterday as I got ready to write my post I noticed I had over 100 unpublished posts!  What?  How could that be.  So I started looking through them.  At least 50% are simply posts that I've titled with no actual writing.   

A few titles:

• On Summer (Was it good on summer, or bad on summer?)  
• The Day I realized I Support Bernie (I'm assuming this was Bernie Sanders.  I wonder, what did happen that day?)
• Grateful Day 1 (Was I really that stumped...on day 1?)
• This Is What We Do (What, what do we do???)

I shall never know the answers to those questions.  But there were others that were full posts.   I do not remember writing them.  At all.  I remember the situations I wrote about but can't for the life of me remember why I didn't hit publish.  

Here's one:

When Emma began kindergarten I imagined us walking to and from school every single day.  A happy stroll to begin and end our day.  One of the many things that attracted us to our neighborhood was its wonderful walkability and I couldn't wait to take advantage of it!  

 At first my idealized arrangement worked nicely but as time passed I found us hustling around in the mornings more than I wanted because I HATE to be late.  I was griping and rushing and frustrated and yelling.  Emma does not hate to be late plus she's not a morning person so leaving early to walk to school seemed silly to her. It made practical sense to her to NOT walk and to use that extra 15 minutes to sleep.

 We went on like this for several years.  Me being convinced that walking was the way and Emma dragging her feet every step.  

Tomorrow is Emma's last day of fifth grade and we walked to school once this year.  Once.  On the first day of school.  We replaced the walk with a quick drive and gave up the yelling and frustration---we've hung on to the hustling, it just became part of our fabric.

In an oddly sweet turn, Emma did walk home most days and in some little way that seems absolutely perfect.  That sort of sums up what elementary school has been for us....having the most incredible place to figure out what works and what doesn't, where to put energy and where to ease up and how to change expectations and figure out what's really important.

Fast forward four years...

6:55AM!!  Dressed and ready for her day!  She leaves early every day and is up late every night.  All that hustling we did in elementary school is paying off!  

Today I'm grateful for noticing.  Noticing the little ways my girls are growing.  Noticing the changes  but also the sweet connections to the past.  Noticing how no matter if they're 15 months of 15 years, seeing their faces first thing in the morning makes my heart leap a little.  

 I hope I always remember to notice.