A Few Moments with Benjamin

Look at this child.

The toddler twinkle in his eyes catches me off guard. He seems to be saying, “Here I am, World! Just wait, I am coming.”

Nothing draws my awareness to the passing of time as much as a child’s first year of life. Somehow, the even rhythm of days and nights has changed my tiny newborn brother into a this adventurous tike. This little boy, who mastered walking months ago, and is trying out new words every day. An adventurer, ready to explore, who seems to find trouble around every corner. Just a year ago, his only view of the world came from over someones shoulder. And he didn’t mind-he was too busy sleeping to think about adventures. Has so much time passed since then?

I have been thinking a lot about time of late. It’s so much harder to find time for everything I would like to do than when I was in high school, or even in the first two years of school. And yet, how time is used determines so much. What a priceless commodity!  Nothing is easier than letting it slip by, but there is so much responsibility in using it wisely.

I was spending some time enjoying the sun with Benjamin, who knows that being outside is ever so much more fun than staying in. There, his favorite pastime is to run to the far side of the trampoline, lifting his chubby feet high with each step, then turn and run back towards me.  Then he presses his nose into the netting to leave me with a sticky kiss before he squeals with glee and runs away to repeat the sequence again.

 When he finally tired of this game, we spent the last minutes until supper wandering the edge of the garden. I was trying to persuade him to use sign language for the word flower, but without luck. We will work on that one later. So we just looked at the flowers and tried not to pick too many. I took a deep breath as I felt the glowing warmth of the sun against my face and watched the clumsy baby fingers fingering leaves and petals. I knew there was no better way I could have spent those thirty minutes of precious, precious time.