Simplicity

I am trying to hold on to the last bit of childhood that I have left with my girls. It seems like they grow every night. I came upstairs the other night to see Lily's feet hanging off of the bed and thought for a minute that it was Caroline. How did my baby suddenly morph into a kid? She is getting tall and leggy. She lost her first two teeth. The first one she lost over the 4th of July when we were at the beach.

I have figured that the best way to hold on is to time travel. I am going to go back in time and trying to become as like June Cleaver as I possibly can (well June Cleaver with a microwave and DVR). What I mean is we need to slow down and enjoy the simple things. While Caroline was at camp, Lily and I started taking walks. We don't live in the most picturesque area. We live in your typical sprawling suburb. Lily has rediscovered Sesame Street (I love having my morning tea with Lily and Elmo :)) and has this new interest in walking around her neighborhood. She is very put out that we can't walk to the grocery store or library or pool. Beside not being green, we were not "being neighborly." I tried to explain that everything was too far away and finally settled on let's just walk around our block and see what we can see. This reminded her of her favorite song http://www.myspace.com/billharleymusic/music/songs/a-walk-around-the-block-73980306 and we were off singing and exploring.

I forget how the smallest things are so thrilling. She was delighted that she could see the flowers along the side of the road, she said hi to all the dogs that were being walked, and she laughed with delight when we got to the main road and the cars whizzed by. We kept this new tradition up even at the beach. We stayed in a gated community in Pawely's Island outside of Myrtle Beach, SC. It was full of bike paths that Lily could easily navigate. Everyday she road her bike to the fountain and raced around it while it splashed her. Then she road to the pond and watched the crabs in the shallow end. We sat by the marsh and watched the herons. She greeted every person walking by and admired their dogs. On the last night we invited Rob. He was tired and not in the mood for meandering. He raced ahead on his bike and missed the things that she thought were the most important. Finally in disgust she declared "Dad doesn't get the humor of all of this. The fun part is seeing all of the humans and talking to them." I don't know what she meant by humor, maybe she mixed it in with human, but I got her point. Slow down and enjoy the moment. I can't ask for more than that.