Several times a year, when there aren't travel/socializing restrictions, we have guests that come stay with us. It's a great excuse to go see local sites and I very much enjoy experiencing these quasi-familiar places through the lens of someone who hasn't seen them before. 

This times a million when there are kids involved. So this time around I got to run around with a toddler and an older sibling along with their mom. And it was amazing.

It's hard to pick a favorite experience, but I'm going to go ahead and almost arbitrarily pick the visit to a small river within a 150+ acre regional park. I could have spent even more time than we did, wading around in the warm, briskly-moving water that wasn't fast enough to push the kids off balance, but swift enough to thrill the skin as it poured around our legs. The kids threw rocks, played with sticks, splashed, and discovered the pure bliss that is a living, flowing water space. 

We picked the park because it was a hot day and the river would be not only safe, but help keep heat-related injuries at bay no matter how hard the kids wanted to play. And it was great for them, but really, I felt a bit selfish because I think our time in that river was even better for me. It was peaceful. There was something about the happy babies, and the giggles, and the other families around us enjoying the river too, the rush of water, the sunlight, the warmth and humidity that kept us from getting too cold, and the cool of the water that kept us from overheating. And of course there were the trees, the fish, and snails, old leaves, water skippers, smooth river stones, and the slightly muddy sand that's the perfect softness and roughness for human feet on the shore. We even had a little excitement while moving around because of the uncertain footing on the pebbled, rocky river bed. The risk of falling was ever-present, but knowing that all you're going to get is wet keeps it from being truly frightening.

It's hard for me to imagine time spent in a more pure, honestly human way. 

I especially loved how the toddler was so enraptured with wet leaves--the way they squished, the way they moved when waved about, the way they would sort-of float and then slowly sink, and how drops flew off of them when they were dipped and then whipped through the air. She objected to standing on the pebbled riverbed until we figured out that she didn't like having her feet press into narrow, hard gaps. I had a visceral reaction when we stood her on a large, smooth stone and she smiled, relieved that she was on stable, comfortable ground. Her furrowed brow smoothed, her eyes lit with joy, and her mouth curved into a gap-toothed smile. My body, through no intellectual decision making on my part, mirrored her and I was so happy ...

Yes, there was a little whining here and there, but that didn't bother me, which I guess is a bit strange because that sort of thing did bother me sometimes when I was the parent. I guess at the time I was more focused on how my kids weren't appreciating the cool things we were doing together. I didn't notice as much as I should have that they were appreciating the things we were doing, but that they hadn't learned how to accept and let go of the little irritations that can (if we let them) ruin an otherwise perfect moment. And I, simultaneously, was letting my irritation with the whining ruin an otherwise perfect moment. My so-called maturity and advanced education didn't keep me from making the same mistake that they were making.

I heard it at the time, but didn't understand the observations of wiser people when they tried to tell me that maybe I should appreciate my time with my little ones as-is just a bit more. Those wise people didn't mean that I should ignore the whining, or bad behavior, or pretend that I had perfect little angels that could do no wrong. Rather they understood that patience and grace and calm, but most of all appreciation for what I had, would lead to greater happiness for me and them. I would, whether I was playing with them, teaching them, or disciplining them, show my love for them more clearly. In turn they would respond by playing with less concern about losing, learn more quickly and happily even if the lesson was on the edge of what they could comprehend, and accept boundaries with less protest if they felt that love coming through. 

Weirdly, it goes back to that writing true-ism: showing is often better than telling. Telling is a good shorthand when dealing with fairly unimportant or easily understood parts of a life, but for the rest, showing is going to be felt more deeply, understood more widely, and enrich a reader's (or a child's) experience in a nuanced way. 

And really, I don't think it's realistic to think that if a parent does this or that strategy consistently that there will never be whining or tantrums. So, given that a dog will bark and rain will fall, are we going to scream at the dog and shout in protest at the sky? I think that you can do some training and carry an umbrella, but also accept that sometimes a dog will bark (maybe at something that might really need your attention like a raccoon in your garbage can or rats in the garage) and that sometimes, even with an umbrella, you're going to get wet. And that's okay. That doesn't make dogs and rain awful. Dogs and rain are awesome, and the world would be a much more desolate place without them. So love the dogs, and the rain, and the sunlight, and rivers, and show the love for them and kids and butterflies. Because showing love is pretty much just revealing the love that's inside of us. Letting that love stretch out nurtures it, and nurtures our souls.

So anyway, I had fun, my guests had fun, my husband had fun, and that day will live on as a textured, glorious memory that will make me smile every time I think about it. I wish that day could have stretched on and on, but that's not how days work. Maybe, though, on future trips, I can draw on this experience to remind me to embrace future ones with less apprehension and more anticipation, less futile engineering to try to create a perfect moment*, and more appreciation for the moments that unfold as I experience them.

*Trying to create a perfect moment makes me think of weddings. I wonder if embracing the process and appreciating the joy of being in love and all the symbols of that love that gets wrapped up into a wedding would make wedding planning less stressful and a lot more fun. It might even make the wedding itself more fun!