Look Up

Finding joy in the ordinary

It’s dusk. The sky is shades of pink mixed with orange sherbet. The birds swirl and swoop and chatter amongst themselves as they prepare to settle in for the night ahead. My 15-month-old points up to the ever-increasing flock overhead and says “dih.” He doesn’t yet know the word “bird” but he most definitely knows what a bird is. For many months now, he has been fascinated by anything that flies; geese, vultures, robins, herons, you name it. He keeps pointing at them as if to say “Mama, look. Do you see them?”. I am consistently impressed by his ability to spot them further up in the sky than I think he can actually see.

Because of his fascination, we have made a routine of gathering on our deck around sunset to watch the flocks of birds that roost in the trees surrounding our house. Now I’m sure this process has been going on the whole time we’ve lived here but I’d never stopped long enough to actually pay attention to what was going on right outside my window. That is, until my son helped clue me in.

There’s something about becoming a mother that has really caused me to slow down and soak things in more intentionally. I had always heard the common refrain “They grow up so fast. Make sure you soak it up while it lasts,” but never really understood how true that was until I started watching this newborn turn into a baby and now especially as he is becoming a toddler.

Sometimes (read: a lot of the time) it’s easier to focus on the lunch he didn’t eat or the 42 plastic animals strung across the living room floor or the toy car I almost slipped on or, or, or….But what I really need is to take a second to breathe and intentionally look for the little joys God has graciously laid in my path: the way the warm sunlight streams through our windows in the afternoon, the smell of garlic sizzling in butter, the way a good book draws me in. I can choose where to direct my focus and so often I don’t choose to notice the joy happening all around me. It’s a process I’m still learning every day.

Every night it’s as if God puts on this whole display just for us to enjoy. My son will contentedly sit in my lap, recline back against my chest, and be mesmerized by the cacophony going on overhead. The joy that lights up his face fills my heart in a way that I didn’t know before becoming a mom.

His joy is contagious and we are finding it together by looking up.

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Overheard at Home".