| Granola Bar Wrappers and Chicken Coops |
By: By Susan Swindell Day - May 2008
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How is it that after all these years I am still picking up soiled socks in the backyard kicked off of happy feet swinging back and forth on the swing set? How is it that after 14 years as a mother, I am still insisting that all lights in unoccupied rooms be turned off in time for dinner? Still insisting that granola bar wrappers not be strewn and left on the playroom floor? How can I finally, once and for all, impart on my children the right way to treat our home, the right way to live our lives? the way to live well without trouncing about so carelessly?
Outside my home, beautiful yellow and white daffodils are popping up everywhere. By the time you read this they will be gone -- Bradford Pear blossoms, too. We change. On lovely mornings we long to be outside, digging our hands in the dirt, planting flowers and filling pots. We meander through flower marts seeking seeds, hanging plants, new annuals and ways to deepen the beauty of spring around our homes.
I understood wanting to spruce and make things better from a very young age. Indoors, my room was forever a work in progress. Like an artist, I was forever rearranging on a whim and pushing my furniture about. Outdoors -- I grew up on several acres of farmland and spent most of my time outside -- I loved picking spring onion grass, exploring under bushes and trees and creating houses out of nothing but my findings. We had an old, abandoned chicken coop that I'd redecorate into a mansion time and time again. I saw it as magnificent -- not as some dilapidated old coop which it actually was. Chicks were once born here. Hands had reached in gathered eggs -- probably set in a basket lined with a soft cloth. Now it was my turn here. I'd use old clay pots, discarded items left in storage, splintery boards and musty jars. I loved following the vision in my head. Finally, I'd sweep the dirty wooden floor until it was smooth. When my masterpiece was done, my friends and I would play house or boarding school in there for days, rushing each morning after breakfast across the 200 grassy yards or so from my back door to continue our fun. Like all things, eventually we'd forget about our game and move on, leaving the coop to its demise once more.
But what about my four .. dare I say it ... careless children? They aren't, really. They are just different than I was. They are becoming themselves. And I probably have harped too much on the little things like socks and granola bar wrappers.
Last night while Stew and I sat on our back porch, the four of them played flashlight tag in the dark. We could hear them without seeing them. They hooped and hollered causing, I'm sure, more than one neighbor or two to look out their windows. Day or night, my boisterous bunch adds spice to our typically quiet neighborhood.
The morning after nighttime tag, I walked in the backyard with my coffee. Dewy grass brushed my ankles as I found a hockey stick, several soccer balls, an empty water bottle with the label torn off and discarded there too ... a granola wrapper.
I picked up while my children slept. All these things ... all of these bits and pieces of our lives. I put everything back in its place, filled the dogs' water bowl, poured more coffee and started a new day of rearranging and rebuilding. I have to teach these kids to pick up after themselves! Funny thing is that lesson gets reviewed over and over again in the midst of great fun.
Gee. It's just another day in the old coop.
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