Ordinary Days: Life through a child’s eyes

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My almost four-year-old daughter Kate absorbs everything I say and do, and it won’t be long before one-year-old Sela does too. As their parent, I’m giving my girls a model to follow (for better or worse) and helping to shape their worldview. I’m also starting to see that without even trying, they teach me important lessons about how I look at my own world.

I’ll be the first to admit that I tend to be less than flexible when unexpected twists in my day pop up. I’m better than I used to be, but I’m still no Queen of Perpetual Calm. Throw a wrench in my carefully laid out plans (a plumber who needs to bang on pipes at the beginning of nap time, a meltdown at 8:59 a.m. when we’re running out the door to go to school, forgetting to buy the eggs that are crucial for the new Pinterest recipe I planned to try), and my frustration tends to seep out onto whoever happens to be around.

A few months ago, I noticed Kate had started sighing and moaning, “Oh man!” whenever something didn’t go her way. Or worse, she’d give a loud, “Uggghhh!” I laughed whenever she did it, even though I knew she got it straight from me. I needed to change my reaction to normal, daily frustrations so she wouldn’t think every negative experience was an end-of-the-world ordeal.

Little did I know, she was figuring out a better way to deal with frustration. The next time something happened and my apparently trademarked, “Oh man!” came out of my own mouth, Kate came up to me, put her arm around my neck, and said, “It’s okay, Mama, we’ll figure it out.” With six little words, she altered the way I look at my world, instead of the other way around.

Looking at life through her eyes often helps me zero in on what’s important. Not long ago, a day of no school and no planned activities stretched out in front of us. On my own, a day like that sounds like heaven, but with two active kids, it’s not always as relaxing. I was out of ideas of what to do to make the day fun for Kate.

We ended up making a run to Publix and a couple other normal, unexciting errands. We squeezed in a wagon ride after dinner that evening, and I think we put together a puzzle or something. At bedtime that night, much to my surprise, Kate said, “This was a great day!” She’d gotten to spend the day with her mom and baby sister and go on a walk around the block with daddy — in her eyes, it was perfect! She taught me to see what a blessing it is to have an uneventful day.

As an adult raising kids and looking after a family, I can get bogged down in the daily minutia of life — the clogged pipes, the dirt on the floor, the long days. You can’t always look at the world through the eyes of a child, but sometimes, looking at things from their perspective makes life a lot simpler.

Lauren can be reached at LaurenKDenton@gmail.com.