I carry a stone in my purse.  Well, more of a pebble actually.  It's not especially pretty nor interesting to the eye.

The Spawn are at times like Labradors insofar as to say when you take them for a walk they pick up anything and everything as you roll your eyes and repeat like a stuck record 'Drop it!' though with The Spawn being two legged rather than four we often add on any of the following 'it's filthy!' 'You don't know where it's been!' 'A dog could have had a wee on that!'  If we make the rookie error of being distracted we'll return our attention only to find one of the little cretins attempting to take half a tree for a walk or something.

We're not absolutely mean, only hobbyist meanies so we let them have their pet sticks an what not and stockpiles of natures bounty, within reason.

One day on the homeward school run, The Toddler stopped a midst the tsunami of children and parents, without a care in the world, scrabbled about in the gravel and presented Thing Two with a stone.  Thing Two wrinkled her nose, impatient to get out of the crowded school grounds and back home to play and offhandedly dismissed the stone with a 'what would I want that for?' statement and readied to toss it away unaware of The Toddlers feelings that would be tossed away with it.

I explained to her how I had a similar stone in my pocket and one in my purse that had been there for months.  She looked bemused so I continued to explain.  It's not what it is, it's the fact he found it and gave it to her.  It was the only thing he had to give and he chose to give it to her.  In my eyes that makes it more precious than gold. She got it.  I could see her perception of the world shift ever so slightly within her she remembered, somewhere, that instinctive appreciation.

It's so easy to just discard these gifts and chide them for wasting time or picking up crap.  Don't.  In their eyes this is their treasure for they see the true value in things, the wonder that we so oft lose upon growing up, the marvel in the little things.  The appreciation of the seemingly insignificant. At that instant that treasure is the only thing they have and they chose to give it to you.  This is love.

So I keep this little stone in my purse as carefully as if it was a piece of his heart, because in a way, that's exactly what it is.

I watch you when you are sleeping

I love to watch The Toddler whilst he's asleep, inhaling his very essence.  I want to commit every single detail to my memory and store it in a draw in my heart.  I could stare for hours at the soft dimples of his knuckles in his pudgy little hands, dirty fingernails scruffy from a mornings play.  I wish I could count every crease, every hair, every indentation.  The rise and fall of his chest mezmorises me; a lullaby. I drink the sound of his breathing and the sighs that punctuate the beautiful silence.  I resist the urge, barely, to run my fingers through the golden tangles of his hair or to stroke his pinked cheeks.  I stare in marvel, unable to comprehend that he's part of me, this perfection, is part of me and me of him.  That I created him.  I grew him.  I nurtured him. I birthed him. This amazing being he is.  I look at him and my heart stops, I can't breath and for that moment, i don't even want to.  I'm incapable of looking at him and upholding the fact that he was once inside me, this whole complete beautiful human. One day he'll be a grown up, a man with stubble on his chin, thick hair on his legs, broad shoulders and hands that dwarf mine.  Until then......I shall watch him whilst he's sleeping and protect him from the world.

I never truly understood  love was until I had Children, I still don't understand it....it gets deeper every day though.  Impossibly so.

Love letters from a daughter

The other night, whilst all the children were asleep I wrote Thing One and Thing Two a note.  At school the next day, Thing Two wrote me a reply.....