What Being a Nanny Has Taught My Messy Heart.

It is mid-morning and I had plans to run errands with a sweet toddler this morning. But since she is fast asleep in her crib and full of sniffles today, I am sitting on the couch writing instead. These thoughts are a follow-up of the post I wrote last week about my busy check list personality. 

I will forever be thankful that I have spent the first three years of our marriage being a nanny. It was not the profession for which I spent three years at school studying, but it was a door the Lord opened and the job He literally handed me when we first got married. He has also blessed me abundantly in ways I couldn't have imagined working in this area. I have learned so much about discipline & patience and how to love on kids, which hopefully someday I will be able to implement on our own children. 

One of the things I have learned in this job is how to enjoy the little moments. To really get down and play with the kids. Because they are only little for a sweet short season. Even when you are super frustrated and feel you have to give of yourself even more than feels physically possible, the season is gone before you know it. After changing families six months ago due to the kids entering school age and no longer being needed, I am even more aware of how short these pre-school years are.

The Lord has really given me a heart for these toddler/preschool years. They are so so precious, so hard and so rewarding at the same time. I have been learning how to take those slow child-paced walks, learning to stop and smell the flowers (literally). Seeing things for the first time as a blue-eyed child asks me a curious question. My days are filled with spontaneous kitchen dancing, lying in the park watching the clouds, chasing little blonde girls as they shriek to run the opposite way during a game of tag and all the mess in between (like diaper blowouts, cereal on the floor for the 7th time and cleaning up toys when we are done playing). It can be exhausting to continually teach them while they are so reliant on you for their every need. Obviously I am not yet a mommy, so these are my experiences from having them for only nine hours a day.

Lets just say, I think mommies are superheros in disguise. 

But all that to say it has been a true blessing to not be able to just run errands all day long  with two kids, I was hired to take care of them not run all my errands right? (I mentioned my Type A Personality right? The side of me that likes to be doing things!) 

So its been a refining process learning to slow down and love on them. 

Some days I wonder about the future children the Lord may bless us with (whatever that looks like). I wonder if these days are training ground for my messy heart in learning how to guide a young free-spirited heart who delights in taking their time, enjoying every moment, a carefree spirit. 

And I know my heart will be so much more prepared now, so I am forever thankful for these kids I get to practice and learn alongside. 

They show me grace daily as I learn and stumble along with them. 

The picture in this post is not of one of the girls I watch. I never post their pictures to protect their privacy.