Tumbling Tumbleweed

My dad used to sing a song that went 'Where are you going, my little one... little one? Where are you going, my baby, my own?"

Ever since we returned from our trip to Yellowstone with the Wrights, Jared has been inspired by all of his crawling cousins, and he keeps going and going and going.

With that cute barrel of a belly, his preferred method of transportation is rolling, and he can travel far and wide. It must be a fun way to get around - I remember loving to roll down grassy hills as a kid - it just has one serious drawback...

No Steering!

It reminds of a quote from Dr. James Dobson; he described his son as "All afterburner and no rudder!"

And our Jare-bear keeps rolling himself into trouble. For instance, he rolled right up to the back of Grandpa's dining-room chair, and it's a good thing Grandpa noticed him before he scooted away from the table. He's been rolling up to the garbage cans, electrical cords and repeatedly under our bed (pictured), and then he squawks and squirms because he's got himself stuck.

Pardon me while I wax philosophical here, but he's got me thinking... How often have I done the same thing? We have weeks and months around here that are so filled with "Go! GO! GO!" that I don't look up often enough to make sure all this motion is in the right direction. For instance, I began this summer with the idea that we'd do the all same activities that we did last summer, and two weeks into it I realized that the plan just wouldn't work. We're a different family with little Jared among us, we had new commitments and the other kids needed to learn and grow in different ways than they did last year. So I stopped us in our tracks and had to remap a new route for these precious months together.

Now we're looking at the beginning of a new school year, and I find myself thinking about all that we've learned and done together and how grateful I am that I LOOKED UP and charted a new course. "Back-to-School" time is a great season for charting your course again, and I'm just wondering where the next journey will take us and what we should be shooting for.

How about you? What do you do to chart your course? Do you set goals? Make a check list? Pray? Go to the temple? What helps you feel like you're on the right track and not drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds?