Each summer we do some deep cleaning around the house, including the children’s rooms. I found this on my daughter’s bulletin board:

I had never seen this before. It was covered by more recent paper treasures, tacs fraying the corners, hidden from view. Hanging beside it, curled at the edges, was a coloring picture of a castle. It was mostly orange.

The markers’ ink hadn’t stayed inside the castle lines very well, also indicating it’s age. She has become quite good at coloring ‘inside the lines’ in the last several months.

This is something that happens with remarkable regularity: I will find, scattered amongst the house, scraps of paper beside abandoned scissors or a box of markers/crayons/pencils puked out in disarray. I would never have allowed such disorder when the boys were littler. Keeping things tidy and under control were much more important; school was the place for such tomfoolery.

Oh how I robbed them.

I love the innocence of this picture. She is so pure. Each time a piece of the big, bad world enters her little space I watch some of that innocence die. It is a necessary part of growing up, but I don’t have to like it and I certainly don’t have to rush it.

This past winter we had a rash of small robberies on our property – tools and equipment stolen from our sheds and outbuildings.

Her godmother gave her a necklace last week – a special and very “big kid” gift which she was thrilled about. But she has wanted to talk to me several times about how she could keep it safe from the robbers.

No dirty things allowed indeed.

~ In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child’s.

GEORGE ELIOT, Silas Marner

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