🍀#38☘️Continuing☘️Detours②｜The Ordinary Changes｜What Kind of Scenery Was My Daughter Seeing Back Then

Next month is August. The time when we look forward to summer vacation🍉

Around the middle of July, it is also the birth month of my brother and sister, so it is a season that makes me feel a little restless.

And there is a scene I remember.

The slightly dry sunlight after the rainy season ended🌞

The scenery I see is bright, with sparkling greenery and flowers.

This is a story from when my son entered kindergarten.

My daughter is two years younger than my son. They are siblings who were both born in July.

Before he entered kindergarten, the days I spent with my daughter, son, and myself were
an ordinary daily life.

Riding our bicycles to the park.

Cycling while looking at the scenery and taking detours🚲️🚲️

And we would challenge ourselves on many pieces of playground equipment and play, spending time without ever getting bored.

On weekends, my husband would join us, and we would go to the park again (lol).

Such days continued.

When my son entered kindergarten, my life changed significantly.

Making bento boxes every morning. Picking him up and dropping him off.

I was so busy getting used to my new life that the days flew by in the blink of an eye.

I think that back then, that alone was all I could handle.

However, my young daughter,
without receiving any explanation, spent her days as if it were the most natural thing in the world within that flow.

That is why I think about it now.

And I suddenly wonder.

What kind of scenery was my daughter seeing?

Three months since she started preschool.

On the path to school that the three of us—my daughter, my son, and I—walked,
there were many little joys.

Flower pots lined up at the entrance.
Trees and flowers.
And animal figurines beside them.

“What’s when we get to that corner?”

“A bunny.”

“And at the house to the right of that?”

“A bird.”

“And that pretty spinning thing (pinwheel).”

“Almost there. Oh, what’s over there?”

“A turtle.” “A frog.”

As we went down the hill,

“Sheep Preschool, we’ve arrived.”

On the way home, it was just my daughter and me.

We talked as we followed the same path back.

Even though it was the same path every day, there was a new discovery every day.

That was the kind of time it was.

The time we walked as three.

The time we walked as two.

Sometimes, the days when she invited friends over.

The sight of my daughter proudly guiding them the way home.

When a new life begins,
like a changing wind,
people are pushed by that flow
and move forward little by little.

Busy people move forward as if pushed by that busyness.

But perhaps my daughter, who was walking beside me,
was seeing a different view than I was.

My son began to move toward a new place called kindergarten
at his own pace.

So, what about my daughter?

It didn't seem like there was any major change,
she just appeared to be in that flow.

But, was she really
just accepting it?

A few years later,
when my son started playing basketball.

I didn't have the mindset that my daughter should tag along
just because it was her brother's activity.

That was because I believed my daughter had her own time.

My daughter, who loves books.

On days of basketball practice, we went to the bookstore.

From the many books lined up,
she would look for a title that caught her heart.

I want to read this.

An encounter with such a book📖

Beyond my expectation that she would read it in several sittings during practice time,
my daughter had finished the whole book.

“You’re already done reading it?”
“What kind of book was it?”

When I asked her that,
her story about her world began.

My daughter had a world of her own.

At that moment, I thought:

Even if we live in the same house,
and even if we spend the same time together,
the scenery we see is different for each of us.

Things I couldn't notice back then—

my child's feelings, and our family time.

Scenery that wasn't visible at the time
sometimes starts to come into view little by little later on.

That is why, now, I think about it again.

What kind of scenery was my daughter seeing back then?

Even when our ordinary daily life changed,
my daughter would wait for her brother to come home, and while enjoying that time, she would draw pictures or
read books.

She would read the “A-I-U-E-O” chart aloud for her brother, and
for me, when I was bedridden with a cold,
she would read picture books in her broken speech.

Back then, my daughter was walking at her own pace,
discovering her own unique scenery
as she went.

And now, I am
slowly imagining that scenery.

　What kind of scenery was my daughter seeing back then?
　I wonder if she remembers.

From back then to now.

Her time, and our time, continue on.

P.S.🌱

Do you have even a little bit of 'time just for yourself'?

I believe that time surely leads to the unique charm of that person.

Like a treasure chest quietly hidden in the forest.

You don't have to force it open.

When you feel like talking, you can talk naturally.

It would be wonderful if there were such a safe place or person.

I want to be the kind of person people think, 'Maybe I'll try talking to them.'

Do you have such an important place in your heart, too?

Daily life, which we take for granted, changes as situations change.

Perhaps the 'obvious' is not something that is always there.

And perhaps it is about creating a comfortable relationship with each other.

The 'obvious' evolves too...🍃

Is the 'obvious' something you have to do?
Or is it a feeling of naturally blending in?

🌱For first-time visitors☘️

In 'On a Detour☘️', I write about events where I paused during time with family, parenting, work, and encounters with people, as well as the realizations born from them.
Rather than a place to write answers, it is a record like adding scenery to a blank map with colored pencils.
The entrance to the articles I will be writing from now on is here🌱
🔗https://note.com/good_coyote254/n/n6ef82f0f00fd

👉 #7 'Nice to meet you | The entrance to On a Detour☘️'