“With fondness I remembered all the magic of mundane.”
Never has a sentence resonated more. As we have begun to emerge from our cocoon of quarantine, what was once humdrum has become something magical indeed.
Take last Monday: we met friends for soft play and then, on a whim, went for lunch. A whim! It feels as alien as the phrase “social-distancing” did only 18 months ago. Things are generally booked two weeks in advance with vaccine passports, PCR tests in abundance and an internal debate wrestling with risk versus reward.
So how affirming was it to read “The Wonderful World Was Waiting” by Lauren Fennemore!
This beautiful rhyme shines a beacon of hope on the future. It embraces all that we, or at least I (but I suspect many of us), took for granted before the world turned upside down.
On every page I connected with something from our lives. Something we too had missed. The things I too, had longed for throughout lockdown. From our weekend coffee shop visits to jumping on a tube train.
I’ve read many a bedtime story that is beautiful and touching, but I think after such an anxious, awful and scary 18 months, the words leapt in to my heart as I shared the story.
“And FINALLY they’ll hold you, overwhelmed at how you’ve grown. You’ll stare into their eyes and they’ll stare back in to your own.”
Thank you to Owlet Press for making me reflect on the magic in the ordinary. For impressing on us the importance of family and connection.
If you’re looking for a place to start conversations about gratitude with littles ones then this evocative and emotional book would be it; little ones and big one alike can’t fail to be reflective.
And as for our whimsical lunch, the muffins were magical, the sandwich sublime and the company was just the best. Because there was a time, far too recently, when such a whim was all but a wish.
The Unyoung Mum 