For family home evening tomorrow, we're going to discuss reverence, especially as it pertains to prayer. Our prayer time seems to have turned into a competition to see who can get the person who is praying to solicit God for his assistance in keeping "so-and-so from HITTING me [elbows so-and-so] and LOOKING at me ALL THROUGH the prayer!" God hasn't taken sides yet. A less aggressive form of irreverence was in Caitlin's nightly prayers: "Thank you for all the bugs living FREE and IN THE WILD!" (a phrase she has adopted from the Wild Kratts show). My husband asked her to speak in a more subdued tone, which she did, but I had to laugh to myself. He's the one who nicknamed Caitlin "Little Bug."
When we moved into our current home a year ago, the children immediately took to the new yard. It wasn't created for children--the deck has proven dangerous in its design, the trees are just small enough to beckon young climbers but not strong enough to withstand their attempts, and the landscaping materials in general are just too portable to resist using in all sorts of construction projects. But then there were the bugs. After just one week, Caitlin was able to catch and hold her first flying grasshopper. Because of its color, I call this a "rock" grasshopper.
Here is a girl after my own heart, for I adored catching bugs when I was a child. One of the few home videos of me at Caitlin's age shows me and my twin sister chasing our much older cousin around the yard. She is shrieking while we giggle and threaten to throw our latest catches at her. I might have had a "Doublemint Gum" green grasshopper, one of my favorites.
The kids and their cousin caught a grasshopper during our recent visit to Bobcat Ridge for Grandpa Steve's birthday. I swear he's smiling at me (the grasshopper, that is, though my dad might be smiling at me too). Is it strange that I am proud of my children for fighting over whose turn it is to hold the grasshopper?
Just after I mowed the lawn Saturday, I settled into pulling weeds out of the rocks when something I mistook for a rock grasshopper hopped out of the corner of my eye. Well, it didn't actually hop out of my eye. I just mean that out of the corner of my eye, I saw something hop. My eyes darted toward that corner (do eyes have corners?), and for a moment I saw nothing. Then it hopped again. A toad! A bumpy, granite-colored, gulping little toad. I raised such a fuss in my excitement that the kids probably thought their baby sister had turned into a puppy. I was elated. I had not seen a toad living FREE and IN THE WILD for 17 years. And that had been a sad event, which I must share. My sister and I played volleyball our sophomore year of high school, and the coaches organized a little dinner at one of their homes north of Ft. Collins. As we followed our coach up the front walk, we both saw it at the same time--a little toad, no bigger around than a quarter. Elation was just about to hit, for we hadn't seen toads since leaving Windsor four years prior. But just as the toad hopped onto the path, alas, it landed under our coach's foot. Our coach never knew what she'd done. Fortunately, Mr. Toad, as my kids named him (or her) survived this encounter with the kids. He (or she) probably went home and thanked God for another day, living FREE and IN THE WILD.
[Addendum]
Today (Aug 25), Richard brought in this little sparrow who had fluttered into our yard. It was clearly unwell (and hopefully not contagious), so I made sure the kids understood that it would not last long. Perhaps I made the point too well. Both kids seemed bent on making its last few minutes the most comfortable (Caitlin built a nest for it) or the most adventurous (Richard sent it down the slide). It was dead by the time I saw it going down the slide, though, so hopefully it died in comfort. We buried it in our front yard under a Hawthorne tree. Perhaps it is no longer free and in the wild, but it is certainly with a loving Father who noticed it fall.
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