It’s strange how one small moment can shift something inside you without even trying. Not a big moment. Not a planned one. Just something quiet… something you almost walk past.
We were on our usual morning walk, the kind where the air still feels cool and the world hasn’t fully woken up yet. And then we saw it… a tiny inchworm hanging from a branch, swaying gently in the soft morning light.
My boys love those tiny creatures. They always have. There’s something about the way inchworms move, delicate yet determined, that pulls them in every time. As my youngest ran toward it, the inchworm dropped into the grass and disappeared.
He knelt down in the cool blades, searching with that deep curiosity he carries so naturally. Then he looked up at me and said, “It’s just a stick, Mom.”
I smiled and told him, “No… that’s his camouflage.”
He looked again, slower this time, and there it was, the tiniest movement, the softest bend of a tiny body inching along the grass. He sat there amazed, watching this little life make its quiet way forward… just taking his sweet time. No rush. No noise. Just being exactly what it was.
I feel so grateful for this life… for the chance to give my boys mornings like this. For the choice I made to homeschool them. For the decision to pull them away from the noise and the screens and bring them back to the exact world that shaped me, the world of grass and branches, flowers and tiny miracles you only see when you’re paying attention.
We are all born with that love for nature… that instinct to notice, to care, to feel connected. But somewhere along the way, the world gets louder. Schedules tighten. Screens glow. And that part of us, the part that sees magic in inchworms and shadows and petals, begins to fade.
But it doesn’t have to.
We can keep it alive… in ourselves, and in our children. We can choose silence over noise. We can choose presence over hurry. We can choose to step outside and notice what’s right in front of us.
Standing there, watching my son’s face soften into pure amazement, I felt time slow down. There wasn’t another place either of us needed to be. Just the grass…the inchworm…and the quiet truth of the moment. I fell in love all over again with his innocence, his wonder, his ability to be fully here.
Sometimes it’s little moments like that, the ones we never plan for, that remind us what really matters. The ones that bring us back to ourselves. The ones that whisper, 'This is it. This is the good stuff'.
And maybe that’s the whole point.
Some lessons from an Inchworm...
1. Slowing down lets us see what we would have missed. Most of life’s beauty isn’t loud… it’s quiet, tucked into the grass, waiting for us to look twice.
2. Wonder is something we’re born with and something we need to choose to keep. Children remind us of the curiosity we once carried so naturally… the part of us that still wants to notice small miracles.
3. Nature has a way of bringing us back to ourselves. A tiny creature, a cool morning, a soft moment, they can shift something inside us without any effort on our end.
4. Presence is a choice we make again and again. We can step away from the noise… into the silence… into the moments that actually matter. Only we can do that because if we don't choose to, the world will find a way to fill your time and your silence.
5. The smallest moments often become the ones that stay with us. A child’s amazement. A tiny inchworm. A quiet morning. These are the memories that shape a life.
6. Childhood doesn’t need to be complicated to be meaningful. Grass, branches, sunlight, tiny creatures, these simple things build a foundation of connection and calm.
7. We get to decide what kind of world our children grow up noticing. When we choose nature, slowness, and presence… they learn to choose it too.
Those are just some little things that come to my mind when I think back over the small quiet moments we carry thought out our day. Our entire day is not shaped like this. My boys still want their moments to watch a show or play a few games. Yet it is my choice to put nature first for them. It is my choice to make sure they have plenty of free time to notice more. It is my choice to keep that fire of curiosity alive in them and myself.
Life is too beautiful to miss and that is exactly what happens if you don't take the time to slow down, stop and notice.
We'll talk soon...
