Roses are beautiful! When they blossom in spring they send off a radiant smell. While roses aren’t my favorite flower often when a man gives a woman flowers he chooses roses. A is always good at surprising me with flowers. Since we got engaged he has been bringing me roses and all kinds of other flowers. One of the things I love doing is taking in the beautiful scent of those roses. Sometimes they fill the whole room with a glorious sweet scent. Taking time in life to enjoy the little things is important. Take time to smell the roses of like or they might start wilting.
Some ways I enjoy taking time to smell the roses is by watching little kids as they discover the world around them. As baby starts pulling on toys and making the noise come out their eyes light up with joy and the squeal quickly comes out from their excitement. Or they discover their toes for the first time and immediately suck on them. As a baby, exploring happens through their mouth. The rock outside, the sand in the mouth or the toy immediately goes to the mouth. A baby is an excellent example of smelling the roses. They go through life slowly taking it all in. Their siblings making them laugh, their daddy throwing them up in the air. Their life is filled with utter joy in there surrounding’s.
Once baby begins to walk they no longer take time to smell the roses. They get upset because things don’t work fast enough. They start yelling because the riding toy doesn’t turn the right way or it doesn’t drive fast enough. The other day we took the opportunity to go too our local zoo and “smell the flowers”. Sometimes kids speed by at the pace of light but I love watching them exploring everything. Like the baby animals at the zoo. The orangutan was so darling climbing up the enclosure and exploring her surroundings. She swings from branch to branch or in this case rope to rope almost putting on a show for us. My kids aren’t much different. It seems D has one speed, RUNNING. I seem to remember I used to be loud and yuvaltick (a german word. Like a bull in the china closest). He go around running, jumping, climbing. D’s new favorite thing is climbing the hall walls. He shimmies up the walls one foot on each wall. All the way to the ceiling. He is tickled to just show us this trick. I love watching his joy and delight in this trick.
My flowers are having a hard time growing in this heat. The 10 kittens we had this spring like to push my pots off the deck banister. This certainly do not help. I have never had a green thumb. My mother in law is a master gardener. Her gardens are spectacular. Even through its almost 100* each day her flowers always flourish. When I first moved into our house we had so many great ideas for gardens around our house. We made this beautiful rock garden in the front of our house. Oh the plans I had. We have been in this house for ten years and I am happy to say I might actually be able to keep up with my gardens over the next few years. I decided a few years ago I would focus on raising my babies instead of gardening. I decided you really can’t do both. I was trying to do it all and definitely not taking the time to smell the roses.
As I go through my summer and time is flying by and my kids are flying by me too I’m realizing that I have become a no mom. No is not fun. Now don’t get me wrong I don’t just say yes all the time but I decided I need to start weighing the real harm in some of the things I used to say no to. Does it really hurt to let my big boys stay up building their new birthday Lego sets until midnight? Does it really hurt anything to let my kids have ice cream unusually often? Well no. And does that develop a better relationship with my kids when I don’t just snap NO at them and actually think about if it’s a reasonable request. Like two ice cream cones at the buffet after dinner or not. This enriches my relationship with my children. Are their responses childish or are they rebellious. These are the things I have been weighing a lot these last few weeks.
Taking time to smell the roses and enjoy my children is often easier when my judgment isn’t clouded with no all the time. I am about to embark on a 3 week trip with me and my children. We are traveling east to my home town. I’m actually quite excited about this trip. It’s 1100 miles. I’m taking the trip in 4 days traveling 5 hours each day. We will be visiting family and friends on the way and staying one night at a hotel. If I go into this trip stopping to smell the roses this trip will be very fun. It could be stressful but rose smelling makes it go easier.
If you see me stopped along the road with my nose in the bushes stop your car and join me. Because smelling the roses is always more fun with a friend along for the trip. Life is too short to rush around and not enjoy the small things.
Signing off from one flower smelling woman to another.
Jenny Ren