Our poor kids grow up way too fast nowadays. Television and the internet expose them to things that they should not yet be aware of, modern-day education tests them into a stupor and saps them of the joy of learning, and media and peer pressure both conspire to sexualize them way before it is remotely appropriate. So, it was with a happy heart that I observed my beautiful nine-year-old last night. She had just returned from a field trip with her class to the Essex coast and was arranging the shells she had found on the beach in a circle out on the terrace.
Her concentration and sheer pleasure was so apparent that it lifted my spirits just to watch her carefully arranging each shell, turning them over in her hands to observe the colours and textures, all the while chattering about all the sights and sounds and smells of her day. Again, it made me question our choice to stay in an urban environment during our daughters' childhoods.
Then, she washed and laid out her other finds, which were much less poetic and a whole lot smellier (a crab leg, some shark's teeth and a bit of turtle poo, I'm assured, among them), and my musing ended as my thoughts filled instead with days of sand and mud being trekked through the house and odd bits of animal ("they're fossils, Mom!") being proferred like dead birds from a cat! No, we can stay in town and have little forays into the countryside, I think!!
Well, that's it for today as I am overwhelmingly tired, but was just so touched by this little scene that I wanted to share it. Has anything made your heart spring open unexpectedly recently?
Yes, my daughter brought home a little piece of cloth and on it was sewn her name and a flower. It was hung on a little piece of wood/dowl and now has a prominent spot in our kitchen. SHE did the handiwork all by herself. My heart sang when I realized how much she is learning and how fast. On top of that that she can now sew and her mother can not. :-)
ReplyDeleteIt's such a joy to see their creativity shining through, isn't it? And I am glad they are teaching some good, old-fashioned skills like sewing... we all lose buttons when we grow up! ;-)
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