Skip to main content

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.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Masterful Manipulations: Short Story Homeschool Co-op Class

By Jess
I taught a class on iconic short stories this spring at our homeschool co-op. I don't know how many of my former English teachers may have passed since, but any that have are rolling in their graves at this news. I find teaching especially stressful but this class exceeded my expectations in basically every way and that might have made it worthwhile. We read 20 short stories, which I was free to choose primarily on the basis of how much I liked them. I organized them based on loose associations. Table of Contents (We never officially read this, but it was so short, I included it in case I needed to read it aloud during that first class.) One Summer Night , by Ambrose Bierce Short Story Elements To Build a Fire , by Jack London Irony The Necklace , by Guy de Maupassant The Gift of the Magi , by O. Henry The Ransom of Red Chief , by O. Henry Irony - American The Veldt , by Ray Bradbury The Lottery , by Shirley Jackson Setting - Irony - Foreign The Sniper , by Liam O'Flah...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lazy Saturday

By Jess
I took a three-hour nap this afternoon (no fooling) to make up for my restless sleep last night. It put a big hole in the day, but I'm feeling much better now and I'll be better prepared to lose another hour of sleep tonight. Tomorrow will be the first ever observation of Eastern Daylight Savings Time in Indiana. They've been warning residents of the imminent clock-setting for roughly three weeks on the radio -- and I only listen to the radio while I'm driving around town. Although we'll miss the convenience of Central Time's TV schedule, we're glad we won't have to play "What time is it in Indiana?" with our families for another summer. Come to think of it, we don't have cable anymore, anyway, so the TV schedule will hardly affect us. It seemed the local broadcast channels were on "Indiana time" last year. The day didn't go quite as planned. We had been invited to our yoga instructor's home for an afternoon of "jammi...
4 comments
Read more

Another month passes me by

By Jess
To quickly recap: We enjoyed a late-October weekend in St. Louis, accidentally arriving during the 8th inning of the Cardinals' World Series Winning Game. At the Ballpark Hilton. One block from the stadium. It was a night -- and very early morning -- to remember. We visited the zoo, Union Station, the Arch, the Botanical Gardens (to see the Chihuly exhibit), and I don't remember where else. Great city, good times. The furnace installation was completed on November 4th, and we've been toasty warm ever since. On November 15th, I hosted (with the immense help of three friends) 20 at the Ladies' Gourmet dinner. "Cranberries" were the theme ingredient. Everything was delicious. I was exhausted. The afternoon before leaving for St. Louis, I taped three half-hour shows for the Health Department, which I then had to scramble to assemble and deliver by November 17th. Of course, nothing ever goes smoothly over at the studio, so it took three times as long as planned ...
Post a Comment
Read more