Things That Annoy Me Thursday: Rushing Vs Not Rushing

So there’s this post going around about a woman who felt bad telling her daughter to hurry up. It’s on Huffington Post here.

I admit it, I was moved when reading it. I thought, “Oh wow, she’s RIGHT. I need to SLOW DOWN. I shouldn’t tell my kids to hurry up all the time. We need to LIVE.”

And then the next day I was like, “Hurry up!” because Natalie decided to sit down and stare at her knee as we walked back from the shoppette.

It was hot out.

She can look at her knee inside.

“I thought I saw a hair on my knee,” Natalie said, peering at it. “It was weird looking. What if it was a bug?”

Sweat dripped down my forehead. The shoppette isn’t far from our house. It’s probably like a 10 minute walk. 25, if you walk with Natalie.

According to the post, Natalie is a noticer, meaning she notices basically every damn thing in the world.

This is cute, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not so cute when it’s sweltering out and she’s looking at her KNEE.

I’m trying hard to bite my tongue when it comes to walking with Natalie. I don’t want her to feel rushed all the time. But I also have places to be, things to do. We can observe bugs and the wonders of the world together. But a knee? A KNEE?!

“Okay. All done,” I said to Natalie and scooped her up. I carried her all of two seconds. It was too hot so I set her back on the sidewalk. And then Natalie was like, “Oh! A bug.”

Crap. I did make a vow that I’d be patient when we looked at creatures of the world, did I not? So I forced a smile on my face and went, “It’s lovely,” even though it was not. It was one of those disgusting stink bugs.

“I wonder where it’s going,” Natalie said. “To her mommy?”

I was going to pass out if I didn’t get water soon. How much longer was she going to observe? How long was I supposed to stand there until I could tell her to move it along?

So I went, “Natalie. Let’s go inside and we can discuss various bugs there. We can look up YouTube videos.”

Look, I promise we can observe and notice things together when the temperature is comfortable.

Really, I promise.