Little One learned a new letter today—O.
This brings the grand total of letters he knows to 2.
And that’s ok.
Y’all, I am an overachiever.
I read a post that someone put about her kid on social media the other day.
A kid younger than Little One who knows ALL THE LETTERS.
I freaked out a little bit.
Or a lot.
I google-searched how many letters kids “should” know at different ages.
I scoured amazon for the “best” magnetic letters.
I am an early childhood teacher, for goodness sake, there’s no way I could let my kid fall behind!
And then exhaustion got the best of me (hello, summer of pretending to be a stay-at-home mom!) and I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.
I woke up with a little bit of clarity, feeling like I could breathe again.
And I remembered all the things that Little One can do.
Things like wiping away his sister’s tears and bringing her his lovey when she is sad.
Things like walking up on stage during the camp talent show when they ask for volunteers (even though he’s never heard the song before in his life).
Things like trying seven hundred different ways to make a block structure stand up just right and not giving up until it works.
And I sniffed his curls as he snuggled against me and asked me to read all the digger books again and again.
And I remembered what I’ve known all along.
Childhood is not a race.
Friends, it’s not.
It’s an ambling journey through the woods collecting rocks to fill your pockets.
It’s full-body painting on the porch.
It’s melting ice cubes and splashing in puddles.
It’s singing songs at the top of your lungs.
The rest will come, all in good time.
But these moments of being little are darn near close to sacred.
Too precious to be squandered on the “shoulds” and “bests” that work for someone else.
Too precious to be squandered.
A little bit of everything... 