A Colorful Afternoon

Yesterday afternoon, the youngest of the three girls I watch ("Princess") wanted to ride her scooter outside.  Well, she's not much of a little girl anymore.  She's going to be eight in a few months, which sounds so grown up.  Still, I feel the need to protect her as much as I still can.  So when she started riding away on her scooter, I shouted, "Wait!  Come put your helmet on."

Surprisingly, she obeyed me, but she still protested.  "I don't like my helmet. It feels funny because the strap tickles my chin."

I said, "Well, it feels better than busting your head open."

She exclaimed, "I WON'T BUST MY HEAD OPEN."  This is a promise every child makes, and every child keeps this promise.  Until, of course, the child busts his/her head open.  There's always a first time.  And as Eeyore the donkey said, "Funny things accidents.  You never have them till you're having them."  There's a reason why that's one of my favorite quotes.

So what was my response to Princess' promise that she wouldn't bust her head open?

"I know you won't bust your head open, because you're going to wear that helmet."

She sighed and rode off on her scooter. 

Her oldest sister ("Drama Queen") was inside doing middle school homework (which is too advanced for me to be able to help her with).  "The Diva" was at soccer practice.  So it was just me and the Princess.  I sat on the front steps and watched her ride around the cul-de-sac, taking in the beauty of the afternoon.  The sky was so blue, the grass so green.  It's days like yesterday that make me realize how much I take the gift of sight for granted.  There's a line from a Rich Mullins song, "Here In America," that goes, "There's so much beauty around me, but just two eyes to see.  Everywhere I go, I'm looking."  This world gets so flashy sometimes, so loud, that I forget to look.  I forget to listen.  But yesterday afternoon was just one of those times where I took the time to breathe.  I took a few moments to just be.  And it was good.  It was very good. 

That's when the real magic happened: a simple, fun, beautiful moment I'll remember for a long time.

Princess rode her scooter around the cul-de-sac, but then she came up to where I was sitting on the front steps of her house.  "What happened to your toe?" she asked, referring to the middle toe of my left foot, which is a lovely shade of bluish black due to an ugly bruise I've received while running.

"I bruised it when I was running," I explained.  "It's not a big deal."

"Does it hurt?" she asked.

I shook my head.  "It doesn't feel like much of anything."

"It's numb," she said, as if announcing a new vocabulary word.  I confirmed her word choice as being accurate.  She smiled and ventured to touch my toe--something I normally wouldn't allow.  I've got germ issues and feet issues (seriously, I don't let ANYONE touch my feet)--but today, for some reason, I just didn't worry about it.  She touched my toe and shuddered.  "Why are your toes hard?" she asked.

"I have callouses," I explained.  "They protect me from getting hurt.  I get them on my feet when I run, and I get them on my fingers when I play guitar.  Otherwise, my feet would hurt every time I ran and my fingers would hurt every time I tried to play guitar.  So callouses can be a good thing, even if they don't look or feel that pretty."  It suddenly seemed like I was teaching her a life lesson instead of just explaining why my feet are such a mess.

This seemed to make sense to her.  Satisfied with my answer, she rode off on her scooter for another lap around the cul-de-sac.  Then she returned to me. 

"Do you see our new flowers?" she asked, pointing to some new flowers her parents had gotten for the front yard.

"Yes!" I said.  "I like them very much.  They're beautiful, and such pretty colors."  They were yellow and purple--my two absolute favorite colors for flowers.

"The flowers mom and dad planted earlier are big now, see?"  She pointed to some flowering bushes that I hadn't really noticed before...but I think I'll make a point of noticing them from now on.  They were lovely.

I nodded.

"Can you make flowers grow?" she asked me.

I shook my head.  "I have tried, but whenever I try to grow any kind of plants, they die.  I don't have a green thumb."

Her brow furrowed and she started looking at my thumbs. 

I laughed and said, "No!  That's just what people say when a person is good at growing things.  My sister has a green thumb, because she makes so many pretty flowers and yummy vegetables grow, but that doesn't mean her thumbs are really green."

"What color are her thumbs?" she asked.

I held up my thumb.  "They're kind of like mine."

"Do you have a green thumb?" she asked, still looking at my thumb.

"No," I said, sadly shaking my head.  "I have a black thumb."

She sighed really hard.  "No, Ruth.  You have a black toe, remember?" 

Princess rode off on her scooter.  I laughed to myself, just grateful for moments like that one. 

Too soon, she wanted to go inside and watch tv, and I had to make dinner.  Magic happens in between all the everyday moments.  It's so easy to miss them.  I'm glad for all the colors of yesterday afternoon--the blue skies and the yellow flowers and the green thumbs and the black toes.  I'm grateful for the people in my life, like Princess, who help make every day more colorful. 

And even though I've just been given two eyes, I pray that everywhere I go, I'm looking.

"Be praised for all Your tenderness, by these works of Your hands.
Suns that rise and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land.
Look down upon this winter wheat, and be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky and the color green that fills these fields with praise." --"The Color Green," Rich Mullins

Monday Blahg: Free Timez Plz?

So...

My toe is blue. 

It's the middle toe of my left foot, just in case you wanted to know.

Why is it blue? 

Oh, my toe is blue because I majorly bruised it while running 9 miles this week.  It was 82 degrees outside during that run.  I didn't get sick.  That's a big deal for me.  I was sure I was going to get sick, because I always get sick when it's over 78 degrees.  But I didn't.  BOOYAH!  Take THAT environmental factors!

I thought about taking a pic of my blue toe and posting the pic on the blog...

...but I figured most of my readers wouldn't really want to see that.

In fact, I'll bet that a few of my readers didn't even want to read about my blue toe, but since I've already told you about it, I might as well continue.

I talked to some more experienced runners about my toe, and they said that it's very normal, but my toenail will probably fall off eventually!  YAY!  A sports injury!  A sports injury!

...I'm either really weird, or really awesome, or both at the same time.  You be the judge.

So when the blue toe thing is the "front page headliner" of my blog, you know the rest of my week was pretty lame.  What else did I do this week?

--I did see a Gilbert and Sullivan show.  Having a roomie who plays violin and can sometimes get me free tickets to shows she's playing in, yeah, that comes in handy.  I'm so spoiled.  The show was "Iolanthe," which was a wonderful combination of politics and...fairies.  It was imaginative and hilarous, and the music was lovely. 

--I pet a kitty.

--I also...uh...um...hmm...

Honestly, I don't remember much else from this week.  I think it's because I didn't do anything besides work.  I worked a lot.  And when I wasn't working, I was either running/exercising, watching live theater for free, petting kitties, or sleeping (and honestly, I didn't do as much of that as I wanted to do).  So...there wasn't much long-term productivity there, but every week can't be awesome.

But this week is Spring Break for my preschool AND the family I nanny for is going on vacation (the kids' Spring Break, too).  While I'm hoping to pick up some extra hours from the drop-in childcare center(s), I'm also kind of hoping to have at least one FULL day off.  Even if I can't have a full day off, it will be nice to only have work a few hours on some days.

Hmm.  What would I do with a full day off (or most of a day off)?


--Run ten miles?  Gotta try to do it this week anyway....

--FINALLY get back to editing my book?  I've really been slacking on that.

--Clean my room?  Definitely needs to be done. 

--Finish reading the book I'm eventually supposed to review, or at least make some progress with it.  I don't do well with books I'm supposed to be reviewing, because it's kind of like homework.  I don't want to do it because I have to do it.

--Scream and run in joyous circles because I have some blessed time off?

...it might be that last one.  I might spend all my free time rejoicing because I'll be so happy to have free time that I won't be able to contain my exuberance!  I will just go find a meadow somewhere and frolic!

...and then I'll be sad again because I wasted all that free time frolicking in some random meadow.  ...and my free time will be gone.

Happy Spring Break! 

And if it's not Spring Break for you, then, uh, well...Happy Regular-Type Monday and stuff.
Blah.