Like the little children

I didn’t know it was raining this morning until Henry pointed it out to me. It must have started just after I let the animals out. I heard it in the fan over the stove but thought it was wind. Then Henry told me, “It’s raining, Umma.”

I said, “It is? Let’s see.” We looked out the dining room windows that are about floor to ceiling and low enough for him, and then went to the front and stood out on the stoop while Sam retrieved the paper. In the back, it was hard to see it was raining. In the front, the whole length of the wide strip of street jumped and popped with rain.

I said, “Doesn’t it smell good?”

Then the thunder rolled over, and Henry asked, “What’s that, Umma?”

Life with a three-year-old grandchild is pretty amazing.

At 10:30, when Henry left to spend the day with his Uncle Ian, it felt like it should be 1:30 at least. But neither Donny or me let him go easily. This is the first time he’s gone to spend the day with his uncle. All morning Henry was getting mad at me (in that toddler way) for anything I said that had a hint of non-togetherness. He wanted me and Grandpa to go with him.

Once his uncle arrived, he warmed to the idea, and it was me who was saying, “He’s just getting over a cold. If he’s not feeling good later or wants to come home early, it’s okay.”

Ian says, “We’ll be fine.”

Yeap. We’ll be fine.

Oh how like Henry I am, and how often we forget what a kid is really like when we hear, “Be like the little children.” There’s a combination of precision and wonder, an “it has to be done the way it was done before” firmness: his routine, his chair, sometimes his “way.” (One night I let him wear my Twin’s ball cap while we watched the game and the next he had to have “his” hat.) Then, on the other hand, there’s a little anxiety about the unknown and a way you have to warm up to it. Then you’re fine.

After they were out the door, I told Donny, “This will be good for him.” I meant, “this will be good for us too.”

Donny wondered if Ian knew how to work the car seat. I said, “He’ll figure it out.” Donny hollered through the door anyway: “You okay with the car seat?”

“Yeah, man,” Ian says.

I pick up Henry’s toys and start the second half of my day, not noticing until then that it’s only 10:30.

The great gift of Christmas

Decorated our "indoor" tree finally.

I wasn’t going to. We got it in and the lights on and then, when no one seemed interested in hanging the ornaments, I found I didn’t mind. I told Donny we might just leave it as it is and he didn’t go for it, so I brought up two of the boxes. On the top of the first box were two “theme” bags, one with birds, the other with angels. Henry was enamored right away by both, so we put a few on while we were home alone. Later, Grandpa helped and Angie hovered, and we were amazed at Henry’s dexterity with branches and hooks. He did a fine job, and the balls that sparkle were also among his favorites.

Man, I used to be such an ornament collector. I can remember buying $8 ornaments not too many years ago (well…maybe ten). Then a year or so back, my mom quit decorating as much and gave each of us kids some of the baubles from back when we were growing up. Looking at them last night, I felt bad that I’d considered skipping it, and not just for Henry’s sake. I can still remember going down into the really dank canning room in the basement of my parent’s home to gather up the cobwebby boxes of decorations, and now they’re in my own dank (if not as bad) basement room, and when I look at them…well…I love the darn things. There’s nothing like them now. There’s some sort of charm in the old stuff, which I think, when it’s personal old stuff, comes of the way you saw it as a child.

It seems to me like the great gift of Christmas – seeing with the eyes of a child – seeing with wonder.