My solution? Take Taelin on a picnic, teach her the word "picnic" and she will want to go and have one...all the time. So, yesterday I told Taelin we were going to go on a picnic. She said no. I told her we were going to the park and we were going to eat something. She was on board after that. We packed up her backpack with turkey pepperoni, wheat thins, blueberries, and peas, grabbed a blanket and headed out.
Once we got to the park I was actually able to convince her to spread the blanket out and eat a little something. I could not for the life of me get her to actually pronounce "picnic". When I broke it into syllables, she could do it...put it together, not so much. More important than how she pronounced it (as adorable as it is), is what else we did while sitting on that blanket sharing blueberries. We looked at the helicopter that flew over head and followed some ants back to their anthill. We picked a lot of clover flowers and she noticed the squares in the quilt. We talked about the scary tiger in "The Jungle Book" and how Joe needed a towel when milk came out his nose at the dinner table.
While I am sure you are all enthralled with the blow by blow of my picnic with Taelin, there is something else I would like to consider. It is all too easy to just go through the motions of living. It is far too easy to get lost in a routine (this is coming from a person who loves a routine). While routine is good in some cases, I think it has led me to miss some opportunities of just stopping and enjoying life...and in Taelin's case, learning about life.
It may have been the first clikclik of the summer...but I am certain it won't be the last.
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