Oh, and here’s one last look at the Lilting House photo album. I think that site goes down tomorrow. I reeeealllly need to finish updating my links, argh!
“Exploration,” says John Stilgoe, author of Outside Lies Magic, “is a liberal art, because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens away from narrowness. And it is fun.”
Yes: it is so, so much fun, and that is why I write these posts all chattery with excitement over this or that connection the kids made today. (Or that I made myself!) I know I get carried away, but that’s the point, isn’t it, that way leading on to way has carried me away?
And yet—and yet—I think we are at once ‘carried away’ and made more fully present in the now, more rooted, by these relationships between ideas about things past and future. The joy of connection makes me want to celebrate this moment, this brief encounter with wild-haired child and broad-trunked tree, bus going by, sign on church wall, Scottish warlord creeping over the tower wall and startling the English soldier’s wife who has just put her babe in arms to sleep by crooning that the Black Douglas won’t get him. Child, laughing, shouting “Dinna ye be sae sure aboot that!” across the courtyard outside the library. How can I not celebrate this freedom?
Every day is complicated, messy, and full of friction. And every day has glorious or cozy moments worth celebrating. I seldom bother to chronicle the friction and the mess because writing time is fleeting and precious—and childhood even more so. I’d rather capture the small joys that I might forget—or take for granted—if I don’t take time to set them down in words.
(Excerpt from this post about Real Life, quoted here because I don't want anyone to be under the impression that things are always perfect around here! Heaven knows we are anything but. Perfect, frictionless, orderly? Nope. Happy? Most of the time!)
Be like the bird
Who, pausing in flight
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way beneath her,
Yet sings,
Knowing she has wings.
You’re a gonner now. How could you refuse that grin anything?
Posted on December 31st, 2007 at 6:44 amStill as adorable as ever!
Posted on December 31st, 2007 at 7:44 amHe’s postively adorable, give him a hug from us!!
Posted on December 31st, 2007 at 7:45 amYep, I can now see (thank you for sharing!) why you are every bit as smitten with the new grin as you were with the old.
Does he not just melt your heart on a daily basis?
Posted on December 31st, 2007 at 7:58 amThere are few things cuter on a child than a toothless grin, and you get to enjoy this one for several years! I never did tire of Ellie’s.
Posted on December 31st, 2007 at 10:46 amToo cute! And with a touch of mischief as well. I can imagine where he got that from!
Loved the photo album too. You’ve got such adorable children.
Posted on December 31st, 2007 at 12:47 pmBack to say I loved getting another look at all those wonderful pictures. Beautiful album!
Posted on December 31st, 2007 at 3:25 pmWonderful pictures! Wonderboy’s grin is priceless!
Posted on December 31st, 2007 at 5:21 pmThat is too cute for words!
Posted on December 31st, 2007 at 5:37 pmAwwwwww…. he is just too cute!
Posted on December 31st, 2007 at 7:35 pmThanks for sharing. And Happy New Year!
Good gravy, he’s just adorable! Love the wink!
Posted on December 31st, 2007 at 7:46 pmHe’s so cute! Looks like he’d get lot’s of hugs from his sisters.
Posted on December 31st, 2007 at 11:00 pmHe is too darn cute.
Posted on January 1st, 2008 at 5:29 pm