Photo: Sven Brandsma on Unsplash
He reports first thing in the morning.
He reports again every night.
There’s little that could dissuade him
From being absolutely forthright.
He records every scene with a flourish.
His voice reflects every sight,
As with journalist’s flair
He spells data in ample delight.
He would not be distracted from telling,
The minutia has got to be tight.
After all, he is in potty training
And to him no discharging is trite.
Photo: Amitai Asif
“What are you grateful for, Mama?” the girl asked, head bent over her slate.
“I’m grateful for fire,” the mother said.
“For fire?” the child paused, somewhat dismayed. Perhaps she thought she’d rise up to the top of gratitude instead. Perhaps because her foot, where an amber had landed and left a painful blister, was not particularly appreciative of flames. Perhaps because fire-related chores of breaking kindling and cleaning out the ashes needed doing before she could go out to play.
“Yes,” the woman smiled, one hand stirring the oats even as a foot rocked the cradle which held the girl’s new brother. “Because without fire there will be no breakfast, no tea, no warm bath. Without it there would be no hearth, no place to get out from the damp, nowhere to warm your hands. Without it there would be no pots, no pans, no knife, no shovel, no kettle, no cake, no bread.”
Speaking of the last, the woman rose to rake the coals and make room for the dutch oven before shoveling a heaping mound of glowing red atop the lid, so the sourdough loaf could bake. She could feel the girl’s eyes on her, reassessing what she’d been privileged to always take for granted. What the mother knew could not.
“It is the common that we often forget to be grateful for,” the mother added, her lilting voice directed at the infant, who’d began to fuss, as her words matched the pace of her resumed cradle rocking: “Air to breathe, water to drink, flour for bread, cloth and fleece, a garden and field, to grow our food in.
“And,” she tugged fondly on a ringlet by her daughter’s chin, “having the common things all tended to, gives us the comfort in which to appreciate the more obvious gifts we cherish … like you, and little David, and your Pa.”
“And Gwendoline,” the girl reminded, eyes flicking to the swaddled corn-doll that she liked to tend.
“And Gwendoline,” the mother grinned. She peeked at the letters on the child’s slate. “And children who do their chores, as you will need to as soon as your S and W here receive a bit of mend.”
For the Tuesday Photo Challenge: Common
Photo: Na’ama Yehuda
Ah, the curve of the coast
Leaning into
Itself,
Like a child’s
Sleepy head
Her weight slowly
Transferred.
Ah, the breath of the sea
Curling wave after
Wave.
A warm exhale
On your neck,
Child’s rest clearly
Preferred.
For the Tuesday Photo Challenge: Coast
Photo: Na’ama Yehuda
“Look, Mama,” the child called, a soft fist held aloft as she ran, delighted, toward her mother. “I found some polka-dot blueberries!”
“Wait, where? Let me see? Those aren’t … Did you eat any?”
The child shrugged and twirled away, fingers closing protectively over a grimy palm that still held some blue orbs of what-mama-said-are-not-really-blueberries.
“Wait! Get back here. I need to see those again … Are you sure you didn’t eat any? They could make you very sick! And …” the woman looked around their deserted picnic blanket. “Where is your brother..? Where’s Eric!?”
“Oh,” the little girl pranced out of reach, and gestured vaguely in the direction of the trees beyond the forest clearing. “There. He found polka-dot strawberry mushrooms!”
Note: Inspired by a true story of a family I know, whose summer picnic ended up with a call to Poison Control, an ambulance, and two children in the Emergency Department. One child was fine. The second child eventually got better. Mama still can’t touch berries or mushrooms. Teach your children about the dangers of foraging and instruct them to not pick or eat (!!) any plant they don’t show you FIRST. …
For Terri’s Sunday Stills: Danger
Photo: Chagit Moriah-Gibor
Hold my hand
And we’ll go
Up the hill
As we sow
Seeds of light
For the thrill
Of just watching
You grow.
For The Sunday Stills Challenge: Future
Photo: Daniel Foy
She is deliberate. She takes her time.
Each line is drawn with distinct goal. Each color chosen with remarkable concentration. Each curve labored on in exact determination.
After all, the letters aren’t ‘just’ a prelude to a word expressed. It is none of it ‘just’ idle practice …
It is her name she’s working on, a profound soul-expression.
For The Daily Post
Photo: Osnat Halperin Barlev
“She is a stubborn one,” her mother claims. “Screams bloody murder when she doesn’t get her way.”
“He is our difficult child,” the father sighs. “I guess every family has one.”
“This one is the lovey-dovey twin,” the grandma declares. “Her sister? She’s the total opposite. Wriggly worm, that one.”
“He’s Mister Independent,” the foster mother says, “Won’t let anyone help him with anything.”
“He’s the lazy one,” the teacher complains. “If he can get away with not doing something, I bet you he won’t do it.”
“She’s the fighter,” the nanny imparts, “bossy as they come.”
Surely she is more than stubborn. Surely he’s not always difficult. Surely there are times she does not want to cuddle and when her twin sister relaxes into hugs. Surely sometimes he wishes to be helped. Surely he is not just lazy. Surely there are situations where she does not want to fight.
Children listen to our words, and the tone we say them. They internalize our attitudes of them and all too often identify with the boxes we sort them into. Let us take heed, for what we stamp children as, they might live up to without knowing there are many more hues in the palette of what they are and can become.
For The Daily Post
Photo: RedHeart.com
“Our puppy is drunk!” The four-year-old announced mid-session.
“Drunk?” Their puppy was a five-month-old rescue mutt named Rooky, all paws, mischief and licking tongue. Still, surely I misheard. I looked at the mom.
“Well,” she clarified, her color rising, “he isn’t anymore!”
“But you said!” the boy accused.
“He was yesterday …” she conceded, redder still. “Drunk, I mean. He’s okay today.”
“Rooky drank Mama’s beer,” the boy offered helpfully.
Her blush intensified. “It’s not like that …”
“Mama had to pee and Rooky knocked her beer over and then he licked it up and he maked nasty burps and he walk funny. His burps smell like Mama’s beer,” the boy was on a roll. “Mama called the vet and he said Rooky is drunk. We taked him to the vet. Rooky even barfed.” The boy pointed out, impressed.
“Gramma said beer makes ‘bumble bee idiots dogs or not’,” he added in what I thought was a very grandma-like tone.
I’m considering the odds I might never see that mother in session again …
For The Daily Post
She walked into the house to a flurry of activity: broom in one set of hands, brush in the other. Guilty faces. Unidentifiable smell.
“What…?”
“He started.”
“She told me!”
The woman narrowed her eyes and scanned the room. The counter looked okay. No scorch marks. No splatter on the stovetop and walls like the last time when they had experimented with tomato lava. A foot in pink sock moved in the periphery of her vision and she lowered her gaze to the floor: the toes had attempted to nudge away a white bit of something. Paper?
She sniffed. What was that smell. She knew it from someplace … reminded her of dusty flea markets. Like old ceramics. Ceramics? Ceramics!
The distance to the garbage pail was covered in one giant step, arm already extended to reveal … a heap of shards, jagged shiny white, all sizes.
To the cabinet, still unbelieving: Bowls, mugs, cups. A suspiciously bare corner.
Little feet shuffled, oh so guilty.
There were no plates in the sink. None in the dishwasher.
“What have you done?”
They spoke over each other. “He did it She told me to We had a Greek wedding …”
“…so we had to break the plates,” the younger one emphasized with more hope than conviction. Even at not-quite-four-years-old he knew he was in trouble.
As for the seven-year-old? No added confirmation was required beyond how this child who disappears whenever there’s anything resembling cleaning up, had gotten herself voluntarily busy with the broom.
She shook her head, too stunned to truly feel angry. Yet.
“Where’s your big sister?” The fifteen-year-old was supposed to be watching the younger ones. She better have an explanation!
Chins tilted in the direction of the basement. Eager to shift blame. Muffled sounds filtered through the closed door. She listened. The tune was eerily befitting.
“Doing what?” … even though she already knew the answer.
The little one piped up. “She watching big fat Greek one wedding!”
For The Daily Post
For all the mothers, biological and adoptive, temporary or ‘forever,’ immediate and surrogate, spiritual, female and otherwise …
A day of thanks, for open hearts.
A day for those who carry, hold, deliver, care-for;
For those who pat-the-back-of-babies through long nights, who walk a groove into the floors in the new-parent-dance;
For those who wipe the brow of fever, whose arms and hands are never empty, who fill a plate for others before sitting down for theirs;
For those who watch over the children while their parents cannot be there – day in and day out, in emergency, or any needed time;
For those who fret and worry, contemplate and weigh each day, each milestone, each possible advance to a child’s healthy growing;
For those who open every corner of their heart for love far bigger than imagined;
For those who welcome little ones (and sometimes not so little) and parent, guide, teach, hug, steer safe, keep whole, allow, provide;
For those who still raise pieces of themselves even as they are called to raise others;
For those determined to change course from paths that harm, to ones that cradle;
For those who let be known that children matter, who fight to make the world a better place for those unable yet to lead but destined to inherit what we will leave them;
For the hospitality of parenting souls of all kinds;
For the depth of care so many offer;
For the triumphs and the challenges:
Deep thanks.
For The Daily Post
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