What Does That Spell? Awesome

Yesterday Tessa asked me to read her some of my magazine The New Yorker. I made sure to pick out a bit of an article interesting enough to capture her attention for a moment but without any scary references. She kept saying, "These things actually happened?! For real?! They're actually happening?!" I was bursting with pride at her interest. Not actually in the words I was reading or the subject itself (an experiment in reversing a writer's typical formula) but in the idea of non-fiction itself. Here is a historian, I thought. A real journalist. A note-taker of life. She watches the world and us all. Comes up with her own analysis in her own time and presents it without bias (sometimes). She surprises me always. She's dying to learn how to spell everything. She can not see a word without wanting to shout it out letter by letter, ask what it is, what it means. She put magnetic letters together on the fridge yesterday carefully but without really forming words and read me a whole paragraph about responsibility. I love her craving for learning. She cheerleads her own name incessantly, "Give me a T! E! S! S! A! What does that spell?!" Sometimes too incessantly during a three hour car ride. But we find other words to chant. Other sounds to practice. I'm learning how to teach her to read which is incredible. Something I always wondered about. Her spongey brain sucking information out of the air, filing it deep inside. Using it to spit out, "my pleasure" after being thanked for a kind deed. She's still unsure of any kind of bad guys. While reading her strange old fairy tales I omit parts about people or even ogres getting hurt. They cast spells and ward eachother off with magic sand rather than swords. She's certain aliens haven't visited earth and if you start to talk about anything unpleasant she asks you to please not give her nightmares.

Of course, she's a huff-bucket lately too. This new found brain of hers swells and gives her some bad ideas as well. Like the readiness to debate me or Jason at every turn. A politician? No way! She'll always say she wants to be an animal rescuer when she grows up, she even has her own anthem already "I'm strong! I'm brave! I'm wise!" Yes she is.

Stop, Drop and Breathe

I'm trying to let my sense of time go and forget the worry of coldness and dark. Maybe it's the change of the season. The descending darkness making everything seem more rushed. The approaching holidays and the excitement (and secret horror) of the preparations they'll entail. But these days I've tried to keep from planning out my days beginning to end. I've been pushing my list oriented mind in an uncomfortable direction. One of simplicity in the moment. Without too many chores, errands, non-sensical wastes of time spent driving here and there to pick up essentially nothing. I've been trying to watch my babies grow. To see them. To look into Thatcher's sleeping face and his wide awake eyes, to know him better. To ask Tessa real questions and really listen to her answers. To follow them into the field, down the path, towards the woods. Yesterday they kept running, they didn't look back. I felt such pride that they knew I'd be there. Their sense of fearlessness is something I cherish and their intimate relationship with nature is priceless. Their screaming excitement over finding the last of the ice in the field, a cricket, a gift of a flower gone by. They don't know how much time they have left to their days, in their moments of play. I want to be here now like they are. I want to lie in the field with my family and let the seasons pass however they will. I want to be the field mouse who doesn't scurry.