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Small Wonders, copied from Facebook

By Jess

Imagine you are exploring Bloomington for the day and you have unloaded your boys at a playground on the first nice sunny day of March and you are enjoying a quiet moment alone in the car. You have barely begun to savor the silence and your homemade trail mix when you become aware of a son running urgently back to you, calling out to get your attention. MOM! MOM!

In that moment, you take a deep breath and begin to wonder who could possibly have gotten hurt already and steel yourself for what will come and consider what options are handy in the car for blood or injury or what-may-come in a city you barely know. You resolve to be calm and brave.

The son now reaches the car and launches himself into the front seat MOM! and mere inches away from your face THERE ARE CADDIS FLY LARVAE in the CREEK and they are EVERYWHERE and you have to go see them RIGHT NOW because it is AMAZING.

You take another deep breath because -- it is a relief to see -- he is brimming with excitement and not alarm -- and you are wary because AMAZING is not the first word that comes to mind.
Calm and brave, you go to the creek to see the larvae of a creature of whose existence you were previously unaware.

You go because your love for your son is greater than your nigh disdainful feelings for disgusting things in creeks and it amuses you that he probably doesn't connect your love for him to your dutiful tramping to the creekbed. And in truth, you hyperbolize -- nature is weird and wonderful, though perhaps you exercise greater restraint.

You approach the small creek and choose your steps carefully to avoid mud and muck and see that all your sons are there picking ways down the muddy, mucky, slippery slope to the cold water and you caution and advise and remind and forbid them to get wet.

You go because you always want them to share their adventures with you.

The specimens are pointed out and this intrusion upon your solitude has been for what appears to be small, walking bird poop scattered among the rocks and hardy grasses, and the largest aquatic pillbug crustaceans you have ever seen. A son later explains that the larvae build protective cases out of tiny pebbles and debris they find in their travels, like hermit crabs decorating their shells, a once-upon-a-time favorite bedtime story.

You go because their unrestrained enthusiasm for small wonders feels like a triumph of parenting.





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