Being, Not Doing...

A lovely friend of mine wrote a sentence in her blog yesterday which resonated with me - nothing earth shattering, but something which I think it's good to remember from time to time, especially when life gets crazy!


She had taken her gorgeous gang of boys down to a beautiful lake in their Very Small Town, which they just don't manage to get to enough. 'We must go down more.  Its right on our door step!  Too much time doing "stuff" and not enough time just being!!'  Yes Yes Yes!!!

It's so easy to get wrapped up in being everywhere all at once, and trying to do seven million things, especially with small kids. I don't remember going to organised activities every day when I was little - I went to my music lessons (which I loved - hence I now teach music to small folks myself!), but the rest of our time was spent climbing up the trees in the garden, making magical potions from mint geraniums (which is such a strong memory I now have a pot of them which has shifted from the North Island to the South Island with us!), playing cricket with the set Grandad made for us (hitting a ball over the wall into the neighbours goldfish pond was an instant out!),  and riding our bikes at breakneck speeds down our super steep driveway. 

We weren't scheduled into activities every single day, we didn't spend time staring at flashcards that will help you become a genius before the age of two (and we all turned out pretty smart, I reckon!), we watched a bit of telly & our brains didn't fall out, and despite our tree climbing & racing down driveways, none of us ever had an actual broken bone. My sister came close once, but even that didn't warrant a real cast much to our disappointment. 

I want Jarvis & Olive to look back on their childhood in the same way - I want them to remember being pixies in the garden, digging up potatoes with Daddy, and riding their bikes off the deck (Jarvis' new fave activity). Once I get myself organised we will go back to teaching a music class once a week, because that's something I love & Jarvis loves too (and I really really want to share it with the Mums around here!) , but we don't need to be traversing the countryside each day to attend a myriad of organised activities. 

Next on the list for today - go down to the sandpit & hang out there. There's a tree stump carved into a chair right next to it, perfect for Mamma to sit on while Jarvis does sand pit stuff, and Olive lies on a blanket & talks to her mate the faery. Choice. 

Thanks to my gorgeous friend Nikki for the inspiration x