Stop and smell the dandelions

The kids and I went for a walk this morning. I pushed Rinnah in the stroller and he pushed his teddy bear in a little stroller we got for him last week. He wanted to walk to the park. The park is not far from our house, just under a mile, but at a toddler's pace this could take all day. Still, I couldn't think of anything that was really more important this morning, so off we went.

Along the way he kept saying "flower!" and bending down to smell the flower every time we saw a dandelion, or about every 7 inches the whole way down the block. I thought it was cute and precious, so I took a picture on my phone. Ian thought that was awesome, so from then on he said "flower! pich!" (picture) and wanted me to take a picture of him smelling the flower. Each flower. All the way down the block.

From A Different Road

He repeated this on the way home. I played along for awhile, until it had been 20 minutes and we'd made it less than a block from the park. At that point I started making him hurry so we could get home and make lunch for Jeremy and so we wouldn't miss the garbage truck (the highlight of his week is watching the garbage truck come). But I couldn't help but think it would be nice if we could just spend a few hours out there. How awesome to be in no hurry at all, stopping every time you see something interesting, even if it's only been two seconds since you last stopped. How awesome to be just as thrilled over dandelions as any other flower. How awesome to notice the small details. Even though I know he was excited about getting to the park, he still was enjoying the journey to get there. I hope we can nurture that attitude in him, and that he will never outgrow it. Maybe we can even learn something from Ian as we embark on our next adventure, to not be in a hurry and to enjoy the journey even more than the destination.