Time Is of the Essence

I read a poem this week that really impacted me. It challenged me to spend quality time with my son.

Now is the time to get things done…
Wade in the water,
Sit in the sun,
Squish my toes
In the mud by the door,
Explore the world in a boy just four.

Now is the time to study books,
Flowers,
Snails,
How a cloud looks;
To ponder “up,”
Where God sleeps nights,
Why mosquitoes take such big bites.

Later there’ll be time
To sew and clean,
Paint the hall
That soft new green,
To make new drapes,
Refinish the floor—
Later on…when he’s not just four.
Irene Foster, “Time Is of the Essence”

This poem helped me recognize that I really need to enjoy every moment of Shepherd at age one. This week I tried to keep us outdoors as much as possible.

Here is Shepherd’s current schedule:
6:30am – Awake and Rearing to Go
7:00am – Breakfast
8:00am – Walk or Exploring
9:00am – Nap
11:30am – Awake from Nap and Lunch time
12:30pm – Activity
1:30pm – Nap
3:30pm – Snack time
5:30pm – Supper and time with Dad
7:30pm – Bath Time
8:00pm – Bed Time

As you can see, Shepherd naps almost four and a half to five hours during the day. This gives me a lot of free time to work, clean house, and meal plan. After reading Foster’s poem, I decided that I was going to be better at getting all of my chores done while Shepherd is sleeping, and when he is awake, I want to be actively involved with him. This week we tried to stay outside as much as possible and keep the TV off. The weather was very nice, because it was overcastted all week, but did not rain. This type of weather is very conducive to my fair skinned child.

Every morning around 8am, we would go out into the culdesac and explore. Shepherd loves walking around, pointing at bugs, and getting bark and rocks out of the neighbor’s flower beds. I find it very funny that Shep has no desire to stay in our yard, he runs as fast as he can out of our yard, and only explores the neighbor’s yards. One time, I took my eyes off of him for a second, and he managed to find the only mud puddle on our street. He sat down in the puddle and had a great time. (He got an early bath that day) He also managed to find an ant bed, I saw him bending over with his hand on the ground, but did not realize that he was letting tons of ants crawl up his arm. He was quite facinated with these little creatures, while mommy was quite frantic to get them all off. Thankfully, he did not get any bites. Boys will be boys!

We went to the city pool for the first time this week. We were there about two hours and Shepherd cried for the first forty-five minutes. My goal is to get Shepherd ok with the pool before July. We start swimming lessons in July and I do not want to be that mom with the screaming baby. Once Shepherd finally got use to the water, he had a great time walking around in the baby pool. We even started practicing on how to put our face in the water and blow bubbles.

This week I also tried to let Shepherd spend a lot of time in the backyard pool. Shep and Paisley love splashing around. Here are some pictures Shepherd in his best bathing suit!