My baby boy is now 11. It feels like it has just snuck up on me. It seems such a short time ago that he was born and then later had his first day of school. This year he has started high school and is absolutely loving it. His favourite subject last week? Latin!! I wouldn’t have picked that in a million years.
One of the joys of children at this age is watching them develop, become more independent and form opinions and ideas of their own. No. 2 son has been selected for one of the Year 7 Living Minds groups which is part of the GATE programme and during their first session the students were asked to introduce themselves to each other as they are from different home rooms. They had to say one thing about themselves that was funny, one thing that was interesting and one thing they loved doing. I was curious to hear what he had shared and asking him resulted in an unexpected lesson and treasured gift. I laughed along with the funny thing, nodded sagely at the interesting thing and was quite overcome when he shared the thing he loves to do the most.
And here it is, the thing that I thought was no big deal, but turns out to be pretty special to my lovely boy. Over the past few months we have developed a routine of going to our public library on a Saturday morning. We pack our books to return in our backpacks, walk through our beautiful Queens Park (photo above) on our way to town where we visit the library to change our books and then we go across the road to the wonderful Three Bean Café and have breakfast. We do any other messages we might need to do while we’re in town and then walk home again. I enjoy it as we chat about things we might not otherwise on our way there and back and I satisfy myself that he’s got something he wants to read at school and at home, but I hadn’t realised just how much something so simple meant to him.
This has served as a lesson and a reminder for me. Don’t underestimate the little things. Enjoy just hanging out with your kids while you can. Start making your memories today!
sengawhite.nz 
How true Senga! It is indeed the doing that counts. I try to do the same with my son, who in fact starts his first year of school back in New Zealand in August. Your post reminds me that I need to continue to make every second count with him. Lovely.
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I remember with fondness our Friday evening walks to St Heliers Bay Public Library in Auckland with my 2 sisters & my Dad 50 years ago. It was before backpacks, and walking all the way up the hill of St Heliers Bay Rd with our piles of books on the way back was tiring, but it was a special time I still treasure.
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Thanks for sharing this, Senga.
I think it carries a really important message for parents in these times: it’s not the “stuff” your kids will remember, it’s the experiences. So time to slow down everybody!!
So awesome that your son shared it with others too!! You must be doing a great job 🙂
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