A small brown haired head with flecks of blond leans down. My son’s nose is almost touching a bright orange flower, its torn pedals sprouting from a huge green stem. In the middle of the flower, there’s a fuzzy yellow and black bumblebee butt sticking out. It has its whole face immersed in the flower, guzzling down nectar. My son watches it in wonder, occasionally speaking to it.

None of this was planned in the least. The marigold was a volunteer plant, seeding itself. It awkwardly grew up between our composter and garbage can – nowhere I would have planted a flower. It came from the seeds of a couple of giant marigolds the kids planted two years ago in their dirt box. It bloomed far later than most marigolds, opening its flowers in the early fall. As one of the late fall flowers, the bees found it delightful. They flocked to it far more than any flowers I’ve purposefully planted.

But sometimes those things we don’t plan are the most beautiful. When we only have space for the neat and tidy, the planned and scheduled, you have no room for the unexpected pleasures. You squeeze out any possibility for unanticipated growth.

As a person who loves to schedule things to a tee, letting go of this control is hard. But as a mom with messy, chaotic kids, it’s a lesson parenthood has taught me. To find joy in the moment, to embrace the unexpected.

Because caring for and being in deep relationship with other people – especially children – is something that you can never truly plan out, fully control. To try to do so is to deny your loved ones their own volition. Instead, parenthood and life is a dance back and forth, offering and responding, taking in and giving, just as that boy and that bee revel in that flower.