How My Children Are Helping Me Find Wonder in Seemingly Ordinary Days
Moving at a different pace
Walking into the first parent teacher conference for my daughter, Lucy, I was anxious to hear what her teachers had noticed about her. Having told us of her kindness and silly sense of humor, her teachers exchanged a look that told me something was coming. One of them delicately broached the topic by saying, “does Lucy…take her time at home? Maybe take a little longer to get from one place to another?”
My husband let out a belly laugh and replied, “if you’re asking if Lucy dawdles and takes her sweet time, then absolutely yes!” We all laughed, and her teachers shared that they had instituted a line anchor specifically to ensure that our daughter wasn’t left behind. “She notices every little thing,” her teacher told us, “The color of the berries, the cloud shapes, the leaves changing. It’s lovely and sweet, but we simply don’t have time to see everything she does.”
Living in Lockdown Changed Our Routine
I wish that we did have, or take, the time to notice everything my little girl sees. Lucy’s early years took place during lockdown, which meant we walked around the neighborhood for at least an hour a day. No timelines, no appointments, no playdates, just she and I rambling around the blocks, observing all of nature’s beauty. I cherished this time with her.
This practice of noticing the little things led to her spotting a mama opossum and her eight babies in our backyard. We researched what opossums ate and she set out fruit for weeks, taking note of which foods mama opossum preferred.
Later that summer, her love of small wonders developed into a fascination with hummingbirds. After weeks of advertising around the neighborhood by shouting “hummingbird restaurant with delicious sugar water at our house!” she finally lured a small family of hummers into our backyard. Blessed with a front row seat to the hummingbirds’ daily habits, our family learned their eating schedules, the difference between their flight patterns for a friend or an interloper, and the flowers they like best.
None of this would have been possible, or perhaps even noticed, without my Lucy’s ability to slow down and appreciate the world God created.
As did the additional baby
With the arrival of her little sister, our daily speed changed. Rhythms shifted and schedules adjusted while our family adapted to another little ones’ needs. Life took on a cadence of ‘hurry please!’ and ‘slow it down!’ in a perpetual cycle that we all needed time to master.
After her little sister was born, my father came to help with Lucy, and they began taking daily trips to a nearby park. I am not exaggerating when I relate that they took an hour to an hour and a half to pack, prep, and depart the house. They created a ritual of packing a certain picnic blanket, procuring favorite snacks, checking the weather for appropriate clothing, and ensuring they had an extra roll of paper towels in case the slide was wet.
Some might think that one or the other would grow impatient with this thorough process; however, it marked an integral and dear part of their day. They began their day how they would live each and every moment: intentionally. Both Lucy and my father take notice of and appreciate the small things; this intentionality encompasses a trait I treasure about each of them.
When they returned from the park, their pockets would be overflowing with acorns, leaves, colorful rocks, and feathers; and their minds would be filled with stories of their adventures and thoughtful observations about one another.
Mary Beth Keenan, @mb_keenan.15
The wonder of God's world can be found everywhere
A description from the book ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ beautifully sums up this quality they share, “She was a noticer, Sidney, like me, for all the shelves are lined with shells, bird feathers, dried sea grasses, pebbles, eggshells, and the skeleton of something that might be a bat. They're just bits that were lying on the ground, that anyone else would step over or on, but she saw they were beautiful and brought them home.”
My second daughter, Josie, developed at a different pace from Lucy. She immediately communicated well, but her gross motor skills developed more slowly. She showed very little interest in crawling, why should she when her sister retrieved any object pointed at? But as the months went on and very little forward movement was occurring, I started to worry. We came to find out that she has hypermobility in her hips, which translates to her ability to do the splits all the various ways and, understandably, makes it more difficult to crawl.
How We Notice Matters
As we started physical therapy, Lucy came alongside Josie as her coach, cheerleader, and constant hype-man. Where I saw delay, Lucy only saw progress. Where I worried over what wasn’t happening, Lucy took notice of every little improvement. Our house rang with cries of “Mommy, she swung her leg up all by herself! She lifted up further today than yesterday! I’m showing her how I crawl and she smiled and copied!” All in her own time, Josie was crawling alongside her big sister - and no one was prouder than her tireless coach.
Josie’s speed of development taught me another depth of appreciating each stage of childhood. Perhaps having a second child naturally lends itself to the knowledge of how much easier certain aspects of parenthood become as your children age. You tell yourself, “Once they’re sleeping through the night… eating solids…walking…things will get easier.”
In so many ways, I’ve wanted her to move along in development to simplify our life; but she has taken it at her own speed and shown us what a gift that is. We may not sleep through the night, but I sure love the baby’s breath snuggles. My back may ache from carrying around a toddler who hasn’t decided to walk yet, but her hugs and kisses while I tote her around provide such joy to my day.
Josie’s very presence in our life forces our family to slow down and appreciate the wonder that she is at each stage. My children continually teach me the beauty of caring for someone, of allowing them to take their time, and providing a safe space while they navigate their journey.
Both my daughters and father have helped me to slow down and experience the little wonders of the world that we experience daily. They’ve shown me the beauty that God creates for us in the clouds’ shapes, the bloom of the flowers, the dew on spider webs, and the smallest improvement of a baby’s crawl.
The Lord’s grace blooms new each morning as do the wonders that His hands craft.
As I pray for childlike faith, I am learning to desire childlike wonder. I pray for a pace of life in which I experience the miracles God creates in nature and those which He nurtures in our hearts and the hearts of those around us.
Meet Alli Bobzien
Alli makes her home in Houston, TX with her husband and their two sweet, spunky daughters. She is blessed to spend her days as a full-time mom and a part-time graduate student finishing up her master’s in Theology at Fuller Seminary, focusing on Disability Theology. Alli can usually be found with her girls either in the backyard making mud pies or in the kitchen baking real pies.
Her love of reading and writing is only rivaled by her love for her friends and family; give her a cozy mug of coffee with a good book or a board game with some dear friends and she’ll be blissfully happy. Alli cares deeply for her family and hopes to use her writing to serve other women and families through encouraging their journeys of faith. You can find her writing on Instagram @bobz.alli.