OK, So I’m a little late, Chalk it up to having a lot to do. But we had a LOVELY mother’s day anyway.
First off, we were in Illinois at my Mother’s house for the weekend. The basics happened: My bro-in-law brought the whiskey and tried to get Richard to drink too much (not possible because Richard doesn’t like the taste of alcohol). I brought something awesome to eat and my dad made fun of its preparation, taste, etc. and My sister ruled the roost, something she’s been doing for quite a while. But other fun things happened too, and that is where I’ll take this post.
While my family was inside watching the Kentucky Derby (Saturday, not Sunday), all of my nieces (no nephews on this side of the family) and my son decided they didn’t want to watch tv, they wanted to be outside! So, since I had no interest in watching horses I don’t know run around a track (horse racing is fun to watch, read about, etc. if you’re emotionally invested) I pseudo-volunteered to take them out. As a result I got to spend the next two hours watching children of different ages play together beautifully with (get this) ROCKS!
I wish I had taken pictures, because I now realize that it would have been an excellent addition to this post, but hind-sight is 20-20. While my 7 year old niece Kathryn was busy searching for geodes among the patio rocks (she actually found one tiny one, about an inch across), the other three (5 year old Amy, 2 year old Sidney, and 18 month old Zach) were happy putting rocks in the dog dish, throwing them out into the yard, and following instructions from Richard (who joined me with the children) who was telling them to find certain attributes and grouping them together.
Here’s the way it went: Richard: “OK, can you find all the red rocks and put them in the cup?” and then Sidney would diligently pick out two or three rocks and put them in the cup, decide it was WAY too fully and dump them on the ground, where Zachary would pick them up and try to feed them to the dog or deposit them in Richard or my hands. Kathryn would find a rock basically spherical and rough and ask if it could be a geode and whatever I said, would put them into a pile to ask Grandpa about later. Amy, thinking she needed to oversee the group, would direct Sidney and Zachary to the red (or otherwise requested attribute) and watch in amazement as they actually listened and picked up the pointed out rock and placed it in her hand.
This may not sound like the most entertaining way to spend an afternoon, but I found it quite amazing to see them all playing together. And with something so simple as rocks! I could have stayed out there all day if we hadn’t been called in for dinner. Afterward, while all the other adults were chatting about basically nothing, Richard and I took the children and one of the dogs out for a walk around the pond. The girls jumped and played (but avoided the Canadian geese that were waddling around), I was surprised I didn’t see Kathryn turn a cartwheel it was so reminiscent of children in old western romance novels (or at least the yellow rose trilogy by Lori Wick… why doesn’t trilogy have two l’s… I think it should… anyway). We all took a couple of laps around the pond and then parents started calling in their children to get ready to leave.
My job taken from me, I actually hung out with my parents for a little bit and had a good time. But I think the rest of my family missed out on a great opportunity. While they were busy “getting away from the children” for a little bit, they missed the fact that children are what make a family get-together about FAMILY. I’m glad that I could give them time to talk to adults, but I’m even happier that I took time to talk to the children.
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