Thursday, June 19, 2008

Life is an Adventure

Well, we've moved into the Gardiner's basement. What a comfortable, peaceful place to be compared to what our house has been recently. It's been fun to get to know them a little better also. Maddie, their second child and going into 3rd grade next year, is unsatiable when it comes to life stories. She had overheard me telling Sarah how life was when we found out Elizabeth had CF and then started begging for more stories. I told her a couple about the kids when they were younger, figuring she could relate to those. After 2 or 3 more I thought that was enough. However, Maddie started begging for me to tell more. Sarah said something about not asking for too much then Maddie replied "But I'm trying to help her think her life is an adventure!" Ok, how profound is that? It hit me pretty hard at the time but we were busy with all the kids so didn't get a chance to think on it until recently. Life IS an adventure. Somedays I get so bogged down in the daily grind that I don't realize how full of adventure it is! Here I was telling stories to a 7 year old that I thought were just typical events in a person's life and she was thinking they were so thrilling! And they are! They are events that have helped shape my life as well as my children's. How many parents get to go to the ER with a toddler who scewered his tonsil with a tinkertoy?! So stressful at the time but I could laugh about it now while watching Maddie's eyes get big with disbelief. She loved that one :) So does Jonathan. Surprise, surprise it was he who did that and he loves hearing me tell it over and over!

That was all Tues afternoon. Yesterday we had dinner with them and Maddie asked for more stories, this time some involving crime. HA! Sad to say I actually had a couple buried deep in the recesses of my brain. Fortunately I had one I could tell where I had made some good choices to keep myself as well as my not-so-smart friends out of trouble and I could use it to teach a lesson. Though I did tell her about one where my friend and I weren't so smart but it all ended better then it could have :) Once again, I asked her what the lesson was. Don't go barreling down Montana backroads at over 100 mph with a cop on your tail! And just so you know, my friend was driving! LOL It was good to remember those as well. I had some really interesting teenage moments that's for sure. This is where keeping a journal comes in to play. I'm pretty sure I don't have any of these stories written down. I need to do that. My kids love to hear them so need to put them somewhere on paper so they don't get forgotten. I wish my mom had told me more stories. I started hearing some close to the time of her death and then realized how much I had missed out on. She was either too stressed out all the time to think to tell them or I was too wrapped up in myself to ask about her life. I do remember a couple she told me and I'll have to write those down too before I forget anymore details. Sigh.

Life is an adventure and thanks to Maddie I'm going to start looking for the "adventure" more often in our daily life.

4 comments:

Rachel said...

That is good advice for all of us-- if life is an adventure it must be less stressful to think about... right? That is a good one to ponder today!

Anonymous said...

Aren't children wonderful - they peel back the layers that gloss over our eyes! :) Miss you guys!

vaxhacker said...

I've been surprised many times by the insightful comments I've been given by little kids. Sometimes the greater implications of what they say is missed even by themselves, but even so, they notice more than we sometimes give them credit for.

1000 Miles in 2021 said...

What an fun perspective... we need to enjoy the ride don't we?