A Great Way to Start the Day

Yesterday brought a gray sky and the storms that usually come with them. Last night, after the storms had cleared, the temperature was noticeably cooler and the humidity all but gone.

So, this morning as I looked outside at the beautiful day, I decided we'd go for walk. This is something I really like to do, but do mostly in the fall, my favorite season.

Our walk started out not quite the way I had pictured in my head. There was much whining on the part of two of my children and much taking of deep breaths by me. I knew that they would eventually like the walk so we pressed on. We were rewarded as soon as we turned the corner. There, less than ten feet in front of us was a brown rabbit. I told the children to stop, halted the stroller, and we watched and watched and watched.

My children stared at that rabbit with more attention than I thought was possible. I think they would have stayed there for quite a while if not for the car that drove by and scared the rabbit into his (her?) home under a large pine tree.

I'd like to say that seeing the rabbit excited the children enough to stop the complaints about going for a walk, but sadly it didn't.

There were a few more deep breaths on my part as well as a bit of moderating the older kids' turns riding behind the one-year-old in the double stroller.

Then, about halfway through our walk, we literally stopped to smell the roses. Not much later the children stumbled upon a treasure...acorns! They gathered the tiny acorns in their little hands. There was talk of making them grow, pretending they were pets and feeding them rocks, and of the naughty squirrels they were afraid might come and steal away their treasure.

As we neared the end of our walk, Ann spotted a butterfly. I recounted all the things we'd seen on our walk and told her I thought it had been fun and almost like a trip to the zoo. She agreed, but then said it was "even better!"

I chuckled to myself as I recalled that this was the child who was most against taking a walk. She ran the rest of the way home and her brother joined her. Yet, that was not before we observed a bulldozer near the busy street. That was truly the icing on the cake, or rather the walk.

There are better ways to begin the day than over a cup of coffee. The joy of sharing nature with my children was well worth skipping my morning cup of coffee and enduring a bit of grumbling from children who thought they wanted to start the day with Scooby-Doo. I'd like to think they were shown a bit of how much more special God's creation is than anything man can create, or you know, animate.

Have you learned or been reminded of anything this week? Please stop by Musings of a Housewife to see what others have discovered as they report in the What I Learned This Week Carnival.