There was a day a few months ago when some city workers came into our subdivision to repair the street. It was a warm day and my children had been outside playing all morning.

As I was making beds, picking up toys, sorting dirty laundry and doing my other “mom” chores, I listened to the grind and scrape of the diesel machines working in front of my home. Nearing lunchtime, I went to call my six children in. They weren’t in the backyard playing on all the gym equipment we had purchased for their entertainment. They weren’t in the side yard playing kickball or soccer. They were in the front yard with awed expressions on their faces watching the machines on the street dig and dump and fill.

I watched them for awhile — my grubby little throng — amazed they could stand so still for longer than a minute, but unlike them, I soon became bored and called them in. I could see they were reluctant to come inside. “We were watching the tractors!” my three-year-old exclaimed, pointing as if I hadn’t seen the enormous machines. “Why?” I asked. They all traded glances and shrugged their shoulders, and my nine-year-old answered for them all, “Because they’re neat.”

Later I thought about how enthralled they were with those big machines, as so many children are, and I myself had been when I was young. It made me sad to think that I have become so busy trying to keep up with everyday life that I’ve forgotten how to enjoy the everyday things. — Beliefnet.com