What Does Slow Look Like?

I remember hearing my Grandmother say, on more than one occasion when my children were small, “Enjoy these days dear… they go by quickly.”  What’s a mother to say to that?

Every parent knows there are two kinds of days.  There is the kind that happen upon us, planned or not, to become a perfect Facebook post:  sweet children, balanced joy and green vegetables eaten without complaint.  Then there are the whiny days that go on forever, well into an exhausted night of nursing a baby, soothing a bad dream or holding the bowl for an upset stomach.

I bit my tongue for a grandmother I adored and refused to say what I was thinking all those many years ago. “They may go by fast, but not fast enough for me.”

I would have said that, and I would have been wrong.

As many readers know, I’ve lived more than a decade in and out of maternity clothes.  My pediatrician-parenting ideas are like those recipes you find in a Junior League cookbook.  They’ve stood the test of time, and they come from the heart.  I see life as a one who had children in elementary, middle, high school and college… and amazingly, all at one time!

The time does go by quickly.  And time is made up of good and bad days.  This I know for sure.  So it is that I come back to read Carl Honore, author of In Praise of Slowness, Under Pressure and The Slow Fix.

As I write these words, my world is filled with slow snow and an unexpected day at home.  “What does ‘slow’ look like?” the interviewer asks Carl Honore in the video clip, and I love his response.  It’s  tempo guisto .  It’s what it  feels  like, not what it looks like, when the music is played just right.

In the quiet slow afternoon that the snowstorm has created, I’ve taken the time to ask myself,  “What does the music of my family feel like?  Do I feel rushed all the time?  Am I looking for a quick fix to re-balance our days?”

What questions would you ask?

As the kids bundle up to go outside and play in the snow, a discussion (OK… an argument) over the ski gloves begins.  I am reminded that the  Slow Fix  for any family  Under Pressure  surely begins with patience, and I hold my tongue  In Praise of Slowness .  Compromise ensues and hot chocolate is mentioned.

“Of course I’ll have hot chocolate ready when you get back.  But only if you’ll sip it slowly.”

Shared by Gayle Schrier Smith, MD

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