Slow Down

This week with all the snow we’ve all hopefully had a chance to slow down. That is my favorite thing about snow days. Three snow days in a row with a very energetic five-year-old while working has been loads of fun. Am I just now taking the time to clean up the disaster that is my house. Yep. Were there legos and cars everywhere? Yep. Were there lots of dishes in the sink because I choose to play this morning instead of cleaning them up. Yep. Am I embarrassed to say they are still sitting there? Nope. Because this morning I choose to be completely present with Grayson because for the first time in three days I didn’t want him to hear “I can’t right now buddy, I’m working.”

Thanks to his awesome kindergarten teacher who sent ideas for snow days we found a YouTube artist who shows kids how to draw. We spent so much time doing that over the last two days, and I loved it! I learned so much, and it was surprisingly relaxing. It was so fun watching Grayson. I saw him get super frustrated with that first drawing to start drawing things without watching YouTube and just having fun with it. After doing a few of them I saw his confidence grow and get better with every drawing. I’m going to post a picture of his drawings because I’m so proud of him. And yes, that third one is a flaming marshmallow pooping.

If I didn’t choose to slow down I would have missed seeing that. I would have missed letting him know that when you first start things they are not going to be perfect, but if we keep trying we will keep getting better. I think we are a part of a world that thinks everything has to be perfect without putting the time and work into it. We want our houses and kids to be perfect all the time. They are not, and we aren’t as well. I wish we could accept the fact that we are not perfect. That we don’t have to have it all.

Jesus was the only perfect one! He loves us despite our crazy imperfection. He gave his life for us. He tells us we are loved, cherished, forgiven, treasured, blessed, free, masterpiece, chosen, fearfully, beautifully carefully, and wonderfully made. This week I’m learning that life is so fragile and that the time we have here on earth is short. We need to make the most of it. We need to be there for each other. We need to laugh a hell of a lot more. We need to hug and tell the ones we love how much we love them. We need to dance. We need to have more margarita and wine nights. We need to cherish every moment because every moment is a gift. So going into this next week let’s all slow down and be in the moments.

Always Smile, Michelle