Little kids say some funny things. And sometimes, our little ones say some really profound things without even knowing it. My grandson said something last week that really got to me.
If you’ve been reading these articles for any length of time, you know I’m a “Type A” personality, a high-performer, over-achiever type. And a natural extension of this is that I move efficiently and effectively through the day in both my professional and personal life.
Believe me, I know the importance of balance in life … of slowing down enough to smell the roses. I live an integrated life for the most part. I guess I’d better, since it’s part of what I help clients with as they work to achieve their goals, and how can I have any credibility if I don’t eat my own cookin’?
But, ya know, there are times I still get stuck in that move, move, move mode, especially as we tumble into the holiday season. I’ll bet many of you can relate.
This past weekend … my roll was slowed by a 3-year old.
Normally, I run errands by myself or with my husband, and I can power through half a dozen errands, all over the county, in no time at all. But last month my daughter had a baby, and in order to give her some one-on-one time with her newborn, I’ve started running errands with her older son, my 3-year old grandson.
Sounds great, right? Get a little time with my grandson and accomplish everything that needs to be done, right? Uh, not quite.
I must’ve forgotten what it’s like trying to get anything done in a timely manner when you have little ones around, much less everything I typically cram into errand day. Not gonna happen. Well, I was quickly reminded when little Zyon and I went out to run errands together.
Errand number one: Zyon gets a haircut … accomplished fairly easily with minimal time spent playing with the toys in the children’s salon. On to the shoe store. All good. I even factored in some time for him to play at the playground at the mall. A quick lunch, and I started urging him to the car. “Hurry,” I said. “We’ve got to get going.”
“Why, Nana?”
“Because we still have a lot of stops to make today.”
“But why today, Nana? Will the stores be gone tomorrow?”
Wow.
His question stopped me in my tracks. “Will the stores be gone tomorrow?”
No. No, they won’t, but sometimes we grownups act as if they will, don’t we?
How do I explain efficiency to a 3-year old? Or, maybe the better question is why should he need to know about efficiency at his age? It made me think.
We headed to the craft store, the next stop on our list. But somehow the need to rush was gone. In its place, there was pure enjoyment of the afternoon with my little companion and looking at things from his eyes.
We finished the day with fun time at the park before going home for dinner. Were all the errands done? No, not quite. But most of them were and the fact that we had a blast together far out-weighed the fact that I needed to go out again the next day to finish my errands.
Maybe not super-efficient, but, that’s okay.
The stores were still there.
Warmest Regards,
Barbara