The Gift to Be Simple
I’ve been making a conscious effort lately to enjoy the simple pleasures of life with children. For a time I found myself wasting those precious moments with them, overwhelmed by the stress of getting to the next event or recovering from the last. After all, how much can you really accomplish with a three and a six year old while trying to get from elementary school pick-up to afternoon choir practice?
It turns out that the answer is…plenty.
Our new favorite simple pleasure is to visit the grocery store’s salad bar on the way home from school. The children have fruit every day after school without complaint or coercion, but their love of fruit has been renewed by our occasional field trips to the fruit bar.
Each child is given a plastic container and allowed to choose their fruit for the day. While bananas and apples are common fare at home, the fruit bar offers them blackberries, blueberries, honeydew, cantaloupe, watermelon and more. And freedom. They choose what they want to eat. If Noah is just in the market for strawberries and grapes one day while Emma would like one bite of each fruit, that’s completely acceptable. Sometimes we get completely crazy and allow a rogue piece of broccoli or cucumber slice from the other side of the bar.
No planning. No packing. No preparing.
Just the simple gift of fruitful time with my children.