I lost track of exactly how old Rilla is, but my little niece (age 2 years, 9 months) has a 1-month-old baby sister. She was still calling herself “Baby Rena” a month before Baby Sister came along. I haven’t see either “baby” since the birth, so I wonder if she still calls herself “Baby” or if she allowed herself a promotion? Her mommy said they were going to let her decide… they might have a Big Baby and a Little Baby!
We had our own baby moment this evening. My baby is 22 months old. I kissed her head and said, “Oh, baby.” She started looking for a baby! I pointed to her shirt, she looks at the shirt. She just didn’t get it.
Tonight on the way home after my co-op meeting and a hour-long trip to Target, the kids were amicably trading their good behavior treats back & forth. (“Taste for taste,” they call it.)
Felicity passed Joe an “Ice Breaker” (a sweetart type of thing) and Joe shrieked, “Ew!” In what can only be described as the CUTEST of 5-year-old voices, Felicity shot back, “I can’t help it. When Cate handed it to me it was, like, sucked!”
It was the “like, sucked” part that really got me.
“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.
I lost track of exactly how old Rilla is, but my little niece (age 2 years, 9 months) has a 1-month-old baby sister. She was still calling herself “Baby Rena” a month before Baby Sister came along. I haven’t see either “baby” since the birth, so I wonder if she still calls herself “Baby” or if she allowed herself a promotion? Her mommy said they were going to let her decide… they might have a Big Baby and a Little Baby!
Posted on September 16th, 2008 at 3:12 pmWe had our own baby moment this evening. My baby is 22 months old. I kissed her head and said, “Oh, baby.” She started looking for a baby! I pointed to her shirt, she looks at the shirt. She just didn’t get it.
Posted on September 16th, 2008 at 5:10 pmThat is absolutely priceless.
Posted on September 16th, 2008 at 5:44 pmHow I love these conversations!
Tonight on the way home after my co-op meeting and a hour-long trip to Target, the kids were amicably trading their good behavior treats back & forth. (“Taste for taste,” they call it.)
Felicity passed Joe an “Ice Breaker” (a sweetart type of thing) and Joe shrieked, “Ew!” In what can only be described as the CUTEST of 5-year-old voices, Felicity shot back, “I can’t help it. When Cate handed it to me it was, like, sucked!”
It was the “like, sucked” part that really got me.
Posted on September 16th, 2008 at 7:58 pmOh, they are so cute!
Posted on September 16th, 2008 at 8:35 pmI love to listen in on my children’s conversations. Poor Rilla! She’s in for a shock. LOL
Posted on September 17th, 2008 at 7:34 amSo priceless! Adorable!
Posted on September 18th, 2008 at 1:51 pm