Small Joys

I love summer rain.  I love the way it smells, the way we scurry to clean-up a yard that had been used well throughout the day.  Toys that are scattered and quickly picked up, the kids eager to help while the  dark clouds roll in.  There's an excitement, a coziness to these rain storms.  The smell of coffee brewing, a candle flickering, the sounds of rain bouncing off the roof.  The quiet of little ones that have long been tucked into bed, tired after a day of splashing in a kiddie pool that is way to small for the three of them, yet one they love anyways.  I'm learning that kids don't need much in way of things, they're content figuring out how to play with the things around them.

I get caught up in.  Scouring the used stores and flyers for more toys, more clothes, more things.  Then, as I watched them this afternoon I was reminded that they really don't need much.  They need me, my attention, my love, my discipline.  A little encouragement at times to think of a new game, or a push to find something to do.  I'm working on curbing my desire for things, but I'm also working on not  using the kids as my outlet to buy things for.

They dug for dinosaur bones today, in the corner of my garden, a rather neglected spot that they have chosen for their own.  Jacob tried to plant a tree there once, only to pull it up and "plant" it instead in his room, in the toy box.  He was rather angry the next morning when he woke to discover the leaves had dropped off the little branch during the night, leaving behind the bare starkness of branches.

 I think of that little branch, with the leaves dried and scattered. I think of how easy it is to plant myself in a sea of wants, of things that I convince myself are needs.  And watching the three squish into a tiny kiddie pool?  They were happy, happy to splash and poor water on each other.  Happy with what they had before them, no thoughts of bigger and better.  I know it is a small comparison but I was reminded then of where I want to be planted.  Not in a place of wants and needs where my roots will struggle for survival, but in a place where they will thrive, in Christ, in His Word.

I've been asked by some of you where I got the print-outs for the paper bag puppets from this post.  Here's the link.  I always have a stack of paper bags in our craft box.  Kaylin prefers to make her own, but Jacob loves having these print-outs to cut and glue.