Being Little

Do you remember what it was like to be little? 

When everything was new and exciting?  When life lay before you as an unread book?  When everyday things were an adventure and every morning there was energy and excitement to get up and discover something new? 

Remember?

I do.

I remember when I hold a little girl's hand in mine as we walk out to the mailbox and see if we have any letters.  I remember as we stand in awe and watch a robin as it hops it's way on the branch in front of us.  I remember when I see her laying on her tummy and trying to find just the right page to color in her coloring book.

Anna makes me remember what it was like to be a little girl.  She does it each and every day.

Perhaps the thing that helps me remember is when I watch her swing on her swing.

I loved to swing on our backyard swing.  I would swing and swing. To me, it was the biggest swing in the whole world and it took me places that were far away and beautiful. 

The farmhouse came with an old swing set.  I am thinking that the swing set is almost as old as I am; but it still works.  Anna has found it and she spends as much time on it as she possibly can. 

She gets up in the mornings and asks me if she can go out and swing as soon as her Sunshine Chores are done.  I tell her she can; and she goes right to work to get dressed and get her bed made.  She slips on her shoes and heads for her swing.

She pumps her feet and pushes herself higher and higher.  To her, she is swinging as high as the clouds.  (That is as high as I would swing when I was a little girl - till my feet *almost* touched the clouds).  She swings as she watches James water his garden.  She swings as Zak finds as stick and starts on his quest to look for bugs.  She swings as I wash dishes; and as Rachel heads up to work on another college class.  She swings as the sun rises farther in the sky and as Abbey prepares her lunch. 

As of right now, her longest swinging stretch has been two hours.  Two hours of swinging and dreaming and breathing in fresh country air.  Two hours reminding me what it is like to be a little girl.

I am not sure; but I think if you are wanting to see what true happiness looks like you need to come over and just stand in front of the kitchen window.  Then you will see the look on her face as she goes back and forth over and over again.  You will see what it is like to have the world before you waiting to be discovered.  You will look and you will remember what it was like to be little; and for just a little bit the look on her face will take you back there where you will remember and wish that just for a little while you wish you could be little once more.