Watching children is a treat. Better than TV. And I like my TV: Desperate Housewives (I’m one too but in an entirely different way), Ugly Betty, and of course I was a huge Sex and the City fan, having recently moved to the countryside and loving the whole city/fashion thing, and totally relating to “Sammy Jo” refusing to ever, ever, even consider liking living outside the bright lights and big city, when SJP was trying to like the cabin her boyfriend had. Guess the joke’s on me there! (No but seriously, I have been taken by the countryside, nature is gorgeous and has the best sounds…)
I’m digressing. Here’s the story. I’m immersed in washing up pots and very sticky pans – immersed to the elbows in sudsy water and immersed mentally in that little chatty voice in my head that likes to complain about everything. I’m vaguely aware of my two boys outside the window, playing. It’s funny the way they get so intense about something then drop it like a stone and get totally immersed in something else. A short while ago they were playing hurling (field hockey for any North Americans out there). One of them got hit on the hand. I suggested being more careful. They abandoned hurling. I returned to the sink. When I glanced up, I saw this:
Messy back yard, children’s table that we’d scavenged from a closing-down primary school last year, 2 mini-chairs also scavenged and painted bright red. On the table: a large tupperware and 5 small plastic jars, all filled with a mucky liquid the color of sludge. Ingredients: water, poster paints, ash (we use a wood burning stove), bits of petals, and misc. bits I’d probably rather not know about. 8-year old R vigorously stirring the open tupperware. 4-year-old J tossing a smaller plastic jar into the air and sometimes catching it. The conversation was rapid, the faces highly expressive, the hair tousled, the jeans filthy with grass stains, the faces bright pink, the eyes sparkling.
Interpretation: Magic potions in the making. This was Day 2, so they had been adding ingredients since yesterday’s after-school project began. The tossing was to mix it further (yeah, sure, J, any excuse to throw things). The discussion was about what to put in the potions, why it was necessary to toss the jars up, the required vigor of the stirring (which splashed up onto a towel hanging on the nearby clothesline…).
Magic indeed. I looked down and the pan was clean.
And the little head voice was quiet; it can’t speak while I’m smiling.
Hi Pam!
I’ve done that before… it isn’t magic potion, it’s filler for the pseudo-hand-grenade balloons that will shortly be connecting with Tom on his filmed mountain bike trip by a pair of tousle-haired little guerrillas (oh please please let that be filmed!)
Love the blog! Keep it up!