Stopping to Smell the Gummies

Ever one to speak in metaphors, especially when I’m cranky, I told my husband last night that I feel like I’m helplessly trapped inside a snowball and am rolling down the hill at lightening speed.

You know the image—arms & legs a’ flailing as the snowball picks up size and acceleration—until, eventually, you crash.

Ouch.

It doesn’t help that I have had meetings every night this past week. It doesn’t help that I have a cool new cell phone but am too distracted to figure it out. And it certainly doesn’t help that when I try to return our overdue books at the library, 3-year-old Angela screams from her car seat, “Not! That! Book! I LOVE that book!” (I find this new habit of hers quite stressful.)

“At least we’re homeschooling,” I told my husband. “At least we don’t have to be out the door by 7:00 a.m.”

“Sometimes I think it’s worse because you’re homeschooling,” he responded. “You get more tired by the end of the day.”

Frankly, I don’t know that there’s a huge difference between what I’m doing as a homeschooling mom and what a busy mom with kids in school is facing. The fact is, we have our plates full. (There I go with the metaphors again.)

So it is this morning that I find myself thinking about….gummies. Are your kids like my kids in that they can’t get enough of gummies? At the very least I am finding that—despite the rigors of my existence—I have some serious leverage with this candy.

I can get my 3-year-old to do practically anything if I promise her a pack of gummies.

Like letting go of the puppy’s tail.

Or leaving her diaper on instead of walking around like Lady Godiva.

Or coming in from recess when she is clearly so not ready.

There is more, though, that I am learning from gummies. The other day I noticed, as we were making the transition from the backyard fun to Math, that the speed with which my children do things is very different from my own. (Okay, so this isn’t ground-shattering. Bear with me.)

I gave them their packs of gummy sharks and was halfway up the stairs to the classroom when I realized…no one was following.

“Kids!” I called out. “What are you doing? Come on!”

I paused to listen. What they were doing was looking at their gummies. They were sorting them, and trading them, and counting to see how many hammerheads, divers, and treasure chests they’d all been given.

They were not, as I’d expected and hoped in my brisk, let’s-get-back-to- business way, just smacking down their candy and getting on with it.

They’re kids, after all. They were living the moment and gummies….are….COOL. (And plus they’re candy.)

What other cool things is this overwhelmed mom missing?

Today I am going to try try try to not smack down the minutes, the moments and the hours. It’s hard. We moms have lots to do—what’s new?—and we aren’t that good at living the moment.

Well, hey. If we’re stuck in a snowball why not roll with it? Snow is fun and so are gummies.

Just ask my 3-year-old.

Ad Jesum per Mariam,