slowing down with little people

Today I had the luxury of taking a day off work to look after my two year-old son. It's something I don't often get to do during the week and on my own. We went out to the shops and had a meander along the street. No particular hurry, no particular place we had to be and no particular time we had to be there.

When you walk with a two year-old everything slows down. Your pace, for a start. We could go barely ten steps before we had to stop and look at something - it's amazing how many interesting pebbles there are on the average footpath.
And having the luxury of time, it didn't bother me. We didn't have to be anywhere and I could slow down and move at my son's pace. Could look at our town through his eyes and see a lot of things I hadn't noticed before in my usual rush to keep on schedule and get things done.

It makes me wonder what life is like for them - being made to rush around at adult pace. The many times that they're told to "Hurry up and get dressed / get in the car / leave that (thing) alone / come on!" And they don't know or care why, have little concept of time. They just want to have an explore or a look "at that really interesting stone over there."

We often hear about how we should slow down and take the time to notice the little things in life. But all too often it isn't until we're forced to actually do it that we do. And it is wonderful. And yet another thing we have the smaller people in our lives to thank for. We live our lives at a fast pace. Perhaps we should make some time to look at the world through a macro lens, find the beauty in the little things, the smaller scale, the slower pace. Notice something small and interesting.