Hurry Up and Slow Down

As I snap a quick photo from the deck, I am instantly struck by two things. 

First, my recently turned 11-year-old is now mowing the grass. 

Second, we have grass. 

The amount of wood chips, dirt, blood, sweat, and blisters that it took to get to this point is remarkable. 

And time. So much time. 

I can’t even remember when this project officially began but it was several years ago. When we moved into our house, the backyard had a pretty significant slope and very patchy grass. Thus began a series of phases. 

There was the wood chip phase. Over the course of a couple of years, we would randomly receive dump truck loads of wood chips. Free wood chips equal spontaneous, sporadic deliveries. And each delivery meant hours of spreading with rakes. Eventually, our backyard resembled a dog park. 

Then, there was the dirt phase. Much like the mulch phase, free dirt also has an impromptu nature. And the piles of dirt were just as varied in color and smell as their delivery dates. The patch of land behind our house began to take on the look of a desert with the aroma of a farm. 

Finally, the day came to plant grass seed. After years of slowly and painstaking spreading layer upon layer of earth, this final phase surprisingly happened in the blink of an eye. 

Quite literally.

I have no idea where the phrase “like watching grass grow” came from, but the sprouting of our blades was neither slow nor boring. It seemed like overnight our brown desert turned vibrant green. 

As it turns out, this type of transformation takes place in more than just our backyards.

That kid that’s out there mowing, that baby boy of mine who is somehow big and strong enough to operate a lawn mower, was once the epitome of the slow mulch and dirt phases. Then I blinked. 

The stages of child growing are not unlike what took place out my back door. The long days and nights of hard, dirty work have us longing for the easier days of more independence to hurry up and get here. Then, when those days arrive, we long for them to slow down and stop growing.

Hurry up and slow down. 

Just one of the many mysteries of parenthood. I guess the trick is to bloom where we are planted. Fully embrace and cherish each phase, accept that time will never make sense… and realize that the grass is always greener right in our backyard, right now, right in the beautiful phase we are in.

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