 |
|||
|
|
|||
|
Escape The Pace® by Lisa Rickwood, BFA, CTACC A whisper of time You wait anxiously for months to meet them, you hold your breath as you first gaze into those newborn eyes – for a moment, time freezes. If you’re a parent, you remember the first time you laid eyes on that new precious piece of life – your child. You remember the smell, the soft skin, the little body swaddled in a blanket – the innocence. In those first few moments of connecting with your child, there’s amazement, awe, peace, love and then…panic. “What the heck am I going to do now?” you think. “This thing doesn’t come with an owner’s manual but everything else does,” you think. And then other thoughts go through your head like, “who is this child going to be in one, two…five, 10 or 15 years?” (I remember holding my newborn son and trying to imagine what he would be like at age 10 – I could not imagine it.) In the first few years of parenting, your life is an endless whirlwind of changing diapers, feeding, clothing, holding, soothing, loving and providing 24/7 support. The years go slow and at times, you can’t wait for your precious little ones to get bigger so you don’t have to hold your bladder too long while you feed your toddlers, let the dog out for a pee and clean up a potential juice spill disaster. Then, all of sudden you find yourself with a school-age child and you wonder how that happened. Once your child is in school, the years suddenly speed up. Suddenly, you’re not the centre of your child’s universe – there are other people and things to distract them. For many of us mothers, there’s a quiet tear shed. I remember feeling a tear when my youngest child was completing grade one and the teacher had a special graduation. I also remember holding back tears as my eldest graduated from grade seven. (I remember wondering how I would hold it together when my oldest son graduated from high school.) As my oldest son turns 15 this year and my “baby” turns 11, I find myself feeling slightly melancholic as I rummage through clothes that are too small and I get rid of toys that are too “babyish” for my 11-year-old. It makes me think… I think back to when my oldest son went from a boy to a man. When he was 12, he went to bed with a little boy voice and woke up in the morning with a man voice. I figured he had a cold – no one’s voice changes that quickly or does it? I asked him if he had a cold but after two weeks, his voice was still the same. I was in shock. What was I going to do with an “almost man” in my home? When did this happen? Time is fleeting, memories are fleeting and life is precious. If you are right in the throes of parenthood and the demands are great, remember this: time goes too quickly and before you know it, you’ll wish for those busy years back. I used to hear my grandmother tell me to enjoy the years and I half-heartedly listened to her but didn’t believe time would scream by – no, I had all the time in the world. Wrong. Now, I spend as much time as I can with my children – I caress their cheeks, I snuggle into their beds, I play Rock Band on the Xbox 360 – I get goofy. I know the day will come when the house is silent. I remember hearing parents make comments about how they’d love having the house to themselves and I find I can’t join in that conversation – I will miss my best friends. I love the energy in my home – the yells, the stomping, the kisses, hugs, the door-slamming, the video games, the music and the fact that I’m important to my boys. Life is transition, always in flux and constantly growing and evolving. It’s normal for little ones to grow up and older people to grow old – it’s life and that’s what makes it so precious. If we had all the time in the world, we’d take it for granted and not spend precious moments with our children. So take this time, embrace the stress, the chaos, the uncertainty and enjoy the challenge of parenthood with your children. Turn of the TV, read with your child, nap with them, exercise, stop multi-tasking and really ‘hear’ what they have to say – enjoy the energy, passion and innocence. These moments do not last forever – they’re merely a short whisper in the fabric of time.
Lisa Rickwood, BFA, CTACC, is an accomplished visual artist, mother, retailer, coach and author of Escape The Pace: 100 Fun and Easy Ways to Slow Down and Enjoy Your Life, and co-author of Power & Soul: 42 Entrepreneurs Share their Secrets for Creating the Business and Life of Their Dreams. If you're feeling overwhelmed, drowning in too many projects or suffering from techno-stress, Lisa can help. For more information on how you can Master Stress for More Success visit: www.EscapeThePace.com and get Lisa's special report, 5 Critical Actions that Hurt Your Business and Life...and How to Avoid Them.
|
|||
|
