Natural Highs: Walking With a Toddler

Taking a not-quite 2 year-old for a walk.

I have a favorite baby at church. I'm sorry if the other young mother at my church is reading this, but she probably knows its true anyway. :) Her name is Cassie. She will turn two in the spring of '09. And outside of her parents, I may be her favorite person in the world that she sees on a semi-regular basis. It makes several of the ladies at church jealous on certain days when she's shy: she will come to me & let me hold her, but hardly anyone else. She is the cutest little friend I have.

Cassie has the most charming smile. It could charm the socks off anyone. It did my Mom. Many of you may not be aware that my Mom was not a fan of the Churches of Christ. It would take a big event to get her through the doors. But once when she came to visit the church where I preach & she met Cassie, she wanted to be there every time the doors were open. My Mom loved little girls. She used to joke about how she'd buy anything if the person selling it slapped a little girl on their commercial, like in this Cheerios commercial. Wouldn't matter if it was anthrax! Mom would buy it.

I guess that sort of explains why the first time I saw Cassie's cute smile at church again after my Mom's passing that that was one of the more emotional parts of the grieving experience. I realized how Mom loved that grin, and how she wouldn't ever see it again. She wouldn't get to watch Cassie grow up like I was going to.

Still, I enjoy anytime I get Cassie to myself without one of the other kids or Church members harassing her to hold her. Whether it's holding her & her playing with my glasses, us playing her "Sharing game" (She's holding something -- anything -- and then she hands it to me, and then I hand it to her, and then she hands it to me...), or whatever we do together.

But my VERY favorite thing is when I get to take little Cassie for a walk. Cassie started walking some time ago in the summer, and she loves to do it. I'll stink my index finger down toward her, and she'll wrap her little hand around it, and we will walk around the church building. We'll walk down the hallway, through the fellowship hall, down another hallway, into the auditorium, around all the pews, back into the foyer, back through the hallway. It doesn't matter where we go. The fun is just in sharing the walk with her. It's a total natural high.