Mama Jar

I was doing bedtime with CJ when AL came in to do his bedtime routine with my husband. When I went in to say goodnight AL asked me if I had found the presents he had left me. I hadn't but said I would go and look right away. When I got downstairs I saw what he had left out on the counter for me. Dear, sweet child.

He is constantly gifting me things. Most of the time it is feathers. Feathers that, mind you, he has found in our living room, having been shed out of our down sofa pillows. Sometimes feathers that are too small to really be held by adult fingers. Throughout the winter, his gifts consist mainly of dried leaves he has found out in the yard or on walks. If there's been snow, he digs through it to find the leaves. I get a lot of rocks and sticks from both AL and BC. BC likes to bring me shells, bits of string, and small wires he's bent into various contemporary art shapes too. And of course they both like to bring me flowers. Every kind of flower they can find in the yard. I keep the flowers and green things in a tiny pot of water that sits in my kitchen window. I spend the spring and summer months constantly rotating out the gifts as they wilt and fade. 

The non-perishable gifts - those rocks, shells, and feathers - I keep in a large jar in my kitchen window. They've dubbed it my "Mama Jar". I'm not sure what I will do when this jar gets full, but I do so love peering into it. It is my constant reminder to be gentle with myself because, just look. Look at how much they love me. There's that saying about parenting young children that goes, "You will never be as loved as you are right now." And I reckon that's true. How I wish I could put these days into my Mama Jar.