As the days have been getting warmer (and the nights perfectly wondrous) we have (more often) let the kids linger outside in their bare feet well past bedtime on a school night. When they beg to water the garden and say things like, “I can’t believe I’m outside without shoes!” how can this longtime city mama refuse? It’s a new kind of ordinary magic I want to embed in all our bones.
Still. We are a young family and all need that bedtime (growing brains and Mama Gets Colicky after 8pm and all that) and as much as we are flirting with summer hours, I think we all kind of missed the family wind down hour from our hibernation months - sipping tea and reading together.
As a parent, do you ever just feel a quiet pull towards something you can’t explain?
Tonight, I drew that line and dragged us away from playing catch with friends etc, et al, and corralled us into wind down hour. I was shocked when Red came out of the library asking me “where is WILD ROBOT and will you read it out loud to us?” Although they have been returning to our family classics (including picture books! #nevertooold) Mama read alouds have been banished to the “for babies” dustbin for a while now. I tried to keep it cool while jumping at the chance to revisit one of my favorite parts of parenting.
I read a few chapters and then Ruby asked if she could read some too. Of course, Red wanted to follow suit (annoying his sister by trying out a British accent).They were expressive. They tried on voices. They laughed knowingly and listened deeply. What is this magic, I wondered? drinking it deep.
Parenting. You revisit so many themes so many times but it’s never not a miracle to arrive in a familiar vista and see it with new eyes. Watching them grow, growing with them, is never not magic.
