"Mom" She says.
"Hmm" I absently murmur, book in hand, mind on a farm, looking at snow covered barns, color streaked evening skies, the plot thickens, I am drawn further in....
"I'm gunna need a piece of paper. Two pieces of paper. To be drawing with. To MAKE something."
Blink, look away from the page. Snap back to NOW, my living room. The chill of late autumn snow, fiery leaves, melt away and I am now in my chair next to the window, sweating because it is hot, in a room now dark from the sun's setting.,
"Mom, I'm doing crafts."
I shake off the image of markered carpet and a million shards of paper and all that I need to have cleaned up in half an hour, before friends fill our doorways.
I look at her, really look at her. Last time she came downstairs, thirty or so minutes ago (was it an hour? really, did I read that long?) she was just-came-home-from-church Abby. Now she is Snow White.
"Mom!" She jumps off the last stair." Why are you laughing? I need a piece of paper. I need TWO pieces of paper."
She is delightful. She has built a rocket out of stickers and a paper towel tube. "AND..." (yes, she speaks in all caps) "THIS one is a restaurant." She points to a sticker, outlined in blue Crayola.
Her eyes dance. There are no wrinkles or indentions on her forehead from worry. Her cheeks are pink from the joy of creating. Her brown curls, ringlets down her back and around her shoulders. Snow Whites blue, blue, and red sleeves don't fit right and they hang off one shoulder.
She is explaining to me how two pieces of paper with something inbetween, and then take a color and go "tshhh tshhh, tshh", moving her hands back and forth and that it is going to be BEE-YOU-tiful. But I am not really listening because I am caught off guard at her preciousness. At her beautifulness. At her young, creative, I have-nothing-to-worry-about-ness.
I set my book and deep thoughts aside.
I start to say something, but she goes chattering on about her other creations. The mermaid who spent too much time in the water and got all wrinkled up and the other one who turned green.
I am pretty sure most of the time she lives just inside a sparkly fairy land, full of glitter, smelly markers, mermaids and Jesus. That line she walks is a clear reminder of how she is made in the image of a very creative God.
She is going on again, asking what day it is and if today is Friday, does that make tomorrow Tuesday or Thursday when she gets to go out with Daddy and can she have a little more Pepsi and another piece of candy?
I stand up, hold out my hand which she grabs, we walk towards the kitchen.
Yes, to the little more Pepsi, yes to the candy. Today is Friday and that makes tomorrow Saturday.
Tonight, after our friends and their laughter leave and our house is quiet again, I'll enter into her world of smelly markers, scissors and stickers. I'll enter into that creative world of childhood, and catch a glimpse again, of our creator-God, the God of imagination and sparkle and laughter, bedtime stories, Narnia.
Stomp, stomp, stomp, up the stairs she goes yelling for her brother.
Stomp, stomp, stomp,back down the stairs she comes, "Mom, can I have a piece of paper? Can I have TWO pieces of paper?"
"Hmm" I absently murmur, book in hand, mind on a farm, looking at snow covered barns, color streaked evening skies, the plot thickens, I am drawn further in....
"I'm gunna need a piece of paper. Two pieces of paper. To be drawing with. To MAKE something."
Blink, look away from the page. Snap back to NOW, my living room. The chill of late autumn snow, fiery leaves, melt away and I am now in my chair next to the window, sweating because it is hot, in a room now dark from the sun's setting.,
"Mom, I'm doing crafts."
I shake off the image of markered carpet and a million shards of paper and all that I need to have cleaned up in half an hour, before friends fill our doorways.
I look at her, really look at her. Last time she came downstairs, thirty or so minutes ago (was it an hour? really, did I read that long?) she was just-came-home-from-church Abby. Now she is Snow White.
"Mom!" She jumps off the last stair." Why are you laughing? I need a piece of paper. I need TWO pieces of paper."
She is delightful. She has built a rocket out of stickers and a paper towel tube. "AND..." (yes, she speaks in all caps) "THIS one is a restaurant." She points to a sticker, outlined in blue Crayola.
Her eyes dance. There are no wrinkles or indentions on her forehead from worry. Her cheeks are pink from the joy of creating. Her brown curls, ringlets down her back and around her shoulders. Snow Whites blue, blue, and red sleeves don't fit right and they hang off one shoulder.
She is explaining to me how two pieces of paper with something inbetween, and then take a color and go "tshhh tshhh, tshh", moving her hands back and forth and that it is going to be BEE-YOU-tiful. But I am not really listening because I am caught off guard at her preciousness. At her beautifulness. At her young, creative, I have-nothing-to-worry-about-ness.
I set my book and deep thoughts aside.
I start to say something, but she goes chattering on about her other creations. The mermaid who spent too much time in the water and got all wrinkled up and the other one who turned green.
I am pretty sure most of the time she lives just inside a sparkly fairy land, full of glitter, smelly markers, mermaids and Jesus. That line she walks is a clear reminder of how she is made in the image of a very creative God.
She is going on again, asking what day it is and if today is Friday, does that make tomorrow Tuesday or Thursday when she gets to go out with Daddy and can she have a little more Pepsi and another piece of candy?
I stand up, hold out my hand which she grabs, we walk towards the kitchen.
Yes, to the little more Pepsi, yes to the candy. Today is Friday and that makes tomorrow Saturday.
Tonight, after our friends and their laughter leave and our house is quiet again, I'll enter into her world of smelly markers, scissors and stickers. I'll enter into that creative world of childhood, and catch a glimpse again, of our creator-God, the God of imagination and sparkle and laughter, bedtime stories, Narnia.
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