When the kids were really young they did crazy things in the backyard of our house in town. Apparently, it was more fun to be crazy in a town where everyone could see them. When we moved to a smaller town, they weren’t as crazy anymore. In our old town, they filled tiny pools with water and jumped in in their underwear. My daughter ran around in her diaper almost all the time, even on the very busy street in front of the house, which sort of drove my husband nuts because he felt it made us look like we weren’t taking care of our children.
Looking back, I totally see his point but he and I both also recognized that children should be allowed to be children. I look back at those messy, crazy, full-speed days and I miss them like I thought I would.
I miss the freedom of them. I miss the unstoppable energy, the unbridled joy, the unrestrained exploring, and the intense curiosity.
Recently, on our third re-read of the Little House books, I had to roll my eyes once again at Ma (Caroline Ingalls) reminding Laura and Mary that children are to be seen and not heard.
I have always hated that saying. I want my children to be seen, to be heard, to be held, to laugh and have fun and make messes and learn from it all.
I wrote this one in 2017, so my daughter was about 3 and teaching me some important lessons in my “old age.” I thought I’d share it today for Throwback Thursday.
She is drawn to mud puddles like a moth to flame.
Like a horse to water.
Like a fly to poop.
Like me to chocolate.
She was drawn to it that day and I let her – even though she was wearing a new cute, light pink dress and I had a feeling it would end up splattered with brown within a matter of seconds.
Still, I love the idea of children being allowed to be children and of me being able to photograph it.
She started by stepping in the water in one part of the gravel parking lot, standing with the murky brown liquid covering both her ruby red slippers with the sparkles – the slippers she had picked out six months ago on a shopping trip for basketball shoes for her brother.
She’d been drawn to those slippers too. She put them on and said “these mine,” and left her old shoes in the floor and walked toward the exit.
When those slippers were covered in water on this day she smiled, or rather smirked, and started to step in each little pool of muddy water with a low chuckle of delight. Soon she was running through the puddles and asking me to do the same.
It was a familiar scene. She’d done the same two days earlier and we had run in the ankle deep water in another parking lot and laughed as we ran.
People smiled at us as they walked by on their way to the local clinic. I think they wanted to run in puddles too.
On this day I ran again with her because that’s why God gives us children – to remind us how be free, that we are free in Him.
Free to splash in puddles.
Free to not care what anyone else thinks.
Free to remember who we really are.
Children remind us that sometimes we need to stop and feel the water squish into our shoes and between our toes and then we need to giggle and see how much mud we can splatter up out of the puddle and all over our clothes.
Children remind us to climb a tree because – why not?
Children remind us that pushing a cart across a parking lot as fast as you can and then jumping on the back of it and riding it to your car is – well – really fun.
Children remind us to be distracted by the way the sun hits the sunflowers in the fields and the butterfly fluttering among the cattails by the pond.
Children remind us how nice it is to hold someone’s hand when you walk across the street.
Children remind us that sometimes we need to let go and simply be alive.
Her brother jumped across the puddle and landed on his feet.
She jumped across the puddle and landed on her rear in the middle of the puddle.
And she laughed and I had a good feeling she flopped in the water on purpose.
Who will show me to stop and laugh in the puddles when my children are older?
Who will remind me it’s ok to not be serious all the time?
Who will hold my hand when I cross the street?
Who will whisper as I walk across a park “I love you, mama?” leaving me with that funny feeling you get in your chest right before you cry?
Why do we forget how to laugh, to splash, to play as we grow?
I posted this photo of my daughter and our dog on Facebook recently and my dad commented the following under it:
Next to the girl collecting Easter eggs with her dog stands a pair of sawhorses that belonged to her great great grandfather. Just to the left of them is a gnarly maple with different bark than the other maples. Behind her is a beautiful tall always liked ash. It is yellowed pale and almost dead now from the ash tree bores that have destroyed most all of Pennsylvania’s ash. To the right just out of focus is a large stone over the grave of one of her mother’s cats.
There is also a small dogwood tree planted by her grandfather nearby. Beyond that are some rotted boards of the dog house he built when nine years of age or so he claims. A shag-bark hickory stood near there and fifty yards above that spot stood a balsa tree, the largest tree in the lot. Seventy-five feet behind the girl is a hand dug well that is now covered with heavy steel plates. This well gravity fed the house and chicken coops. Another well hidden just over the stone wall property line has a large stone covering it.
Just beyond the fence once stood one chicken coop. Water would be hand carried to that one as it was not downhill enough for gravity feed. Hid in the brush 100 feet to the left of the sawhorse is the foundation remains of the spring-cooled milk house. Also, the corn crib was near there. The granary still remains in that spot. A week later as this is being written the buds are opening to vivid green leaves, the forsythia flowers are bright yellow and life goes on.
She takes care of her stuffed animals and our pets and other people’s pets. Sometimes she takes care of me and once in awhile her brother (though she’s usually bossing him around). What she really enjoys taking care of, though, are worms and bugs. I don’t get it, but she likes rolly pollies and worms and wants to put them in containers to keep them safe whenever she finds them. I try to explain that they are safe outside because that’s their home, but it doesn’t always work.
We had filled the pool in our backyard one night this week and for some reason the water on the grass drew a huge worm, one we country folk call a “nightcrawler” right out of the mud. My toddler was delighted. She was delighted to show it to her brother and make a video for her dad, who was at work, and she was delighted when I said she could keep the worm in a plastic container from the kitchen if we added some wet soil to it for it to live in for awhile.
She most likely wouldn’t be delighted that yesterday she couldn’t find the worm so I took it all outside to look myself and discovered the worm was indeed gone. My closest guess is that our very large, moody cat ate it.
I think we’ll have to be a little more careful about taking care of our worms in the future.
This post is part of a monthly blog circle that publishes the 10th day of the month and features 10 photos from the previous month on either one day or throughout the month. To continue the circle please click over to Shea Kleundler’s blog
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She was delighted to show it to her brother and make a video for her dad, who was at work, and she was delighted when I said she could keep the worm in a plastic container from the kitchen if we added some wet soil to it for it to live in for awhile.
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