“Are you just going to let him get away with that?” the older children ask. They remember being put, promptly, back into line by their younger, more energetic parents and now they are watching the same two sipping their coffee…choosing to ignore the toddler playing with something we have told him not to touch. We are a little tireder, and we just need a moment sometimes. Maybe we were too quick, too strict, too highly strung back then anyway. My personal opinion on the matter is that if the toddler is content, nobody should distract him.
I say all that a little tongue in cheek. We are not going to let him turn into ‘the rotten last born.’ We will sort out any offenders, eventually, we just might not do it in the expected way. Experience, the decades and Love Himself have done some good work on us. We have changed some ways, employed new tactics and done away with others. Those first children had very nice cots to sleep in and boy were they going to learn to sleep in them, but now we sleep more like a pride of lions if a particular night calls for it.
We overlook some things and tend to choose our battles rather than going to war on every matter.
A little reminder, whilst it’s on my mind: every old fart should have a darling little six year old girl in his or her life. We have one and she has got a box of silk worms which she is tending to and guarding fiercely. If I was running the risk of becoming cynical, watching her and her silkworms has restored a little of my own youthful wonderment. When I asked her, conspiratorially, if she knew what happened to the caterpillars after all the eating, she said a small little no but her eyes grew, expectantly, large. “They spin silk cocoons around themselves and then turn into moths and when they exit, they mate and lay eggs!” Well! Her little chest swelled and her cheeks went pink and her eyes have been sparkling quite a bit more than usual.
Little people haven’t seen or heard lots of the good stuff yet, and when we spend time with them we get to re-experience the miracles we had begun to overlook. I find myself thinking what else can I show her so I can see that awe again? When it’s bedtime, she checks on them one more time and then bites her lip and wrinkles her eyebrows and decides, “they definitely need more leaves, do you think you can go get some Mommy?” So off I go with my head torch to the chicken pen, because that’s where the tree is. It’s laden with fruit and so our layers are turning their beaks up at their layer’s mash whilst they feast on berries instead. They swallow the juicy purple worms whole and their monotonous days laying eggs have turned rather exciting as they compete for the next batch of goodness falling to the ground in a spring breeze. All the ladies were tucked up comfortably on their perches, bellies full, watching me pick leaves in the dead of night and one little girl waited, hopeful, in the house. It’s very easy to forget about passport applications, whether to get the vaccination, bullies, bad drivers, sad stories and syncing the diary and school calender when you have important jobs like this to do.
“One’s pushing out a raccoon!” she sung on last check this evening.
“Cocoon Love, it’s spinning a cocoon.”
“Wow. It looks just like a corn curl.”
Huge topic here, but in efforts to stick to a page, I will just say to the generations after us, we are not giving up in this season of life, we are giving in. Giving in to a higher way, a better way. Pride and ambition have given way to humility and contentment. We have asked for the ancient paths, the good way, and now we are walking in it and finding rest for our souls – Jeremiah 6 v 16. We have tried and many times we have failed, and we are still picking ourselves up again for another go. Like ageing wine, we choose to believe that we haven’t been forgotten; we are being specially kept. Maturing with grace even when the lie comes that we’ve missed the boat. Watching all the comings and goings and noticing the details, even if it looks like we are not concentrating. Learning the art of childlike faith even as the grey hairs frizz at our temples.
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