Simply Tumbling Down

Lawson is building trains with his blocks again. He's got one going that's"BIG" and awesome and even has a smokestack on the engine. Then, along comes Naomi. "NO, BABY!!!!!!" And they all come tumbling down. "Mess." He says it very unenthusiastically and stares at the ground for a long while. Pretty soon, his cheeks begin to puff out and a smile sprouts on his face. "YAY!!!!" It seems that it's just as fun to play with the blocks when they are knocked down as it is to meticulously place them one after another as they become a masterpiece of a choo choo. Leave it to my children to teach me a lesson during my 30 days of SIMPLE.



Life only goes smoothly for so long. The best laid plans go flying out the window as you fly down I-1OhNo. I've gotten better at not planning too many details. I like to plan, but life goes better when there aren't expectations waiting behind door number 2. Without expectations, it's hard to get let down. No build up equals very little let down when things don't go "as planned." This is SIMPLY because there was no plan. If we plan things out down to the last detail, something is bound to go awry and we are bound to feel some degree of failure. I say, let your hair down, know what you want at the end of the journey, but leave the route taken up to the changes in the weather! Had Lawson been set on building his train and chugging it around the living room to some special location on the other side of the coffee table, it would have ruined his day to have it fall to pieces. But, he's a little man and doesn't have much foresight. He flies by the cloth-diapered seat of his pants! So, when his train got knocked over, it only disappointed him for a second before he realized that the process of building this train just got a little more exciting. I'm not sure he'd have seen it that way had he been set on where it's track were leading.

So, it's SIMPLE. Let life guide you. Let go of the details. Make a list, but don't necessarily stick to it. Use it as a guide. Have goals and aspirations. Just don't beat yourself up if you aren't getting there as quickly as you'd hoped. Don't get angry when you absolutely must get the kitchen counters wiped down and both children desperately want your attention. Okay, so that last one was for me. It's okay to put our days in the hands of life. We may not always know best what's ahead of us and sometimes there are better ways to get there than we think. It's that simple.