By My Side

One of my earliest childhood memories with my own Mama involves sitting on a counter top, grating the giant zucchini from the garden. I couldn’t have been more than four or five and not much bigger than the zucchinis themselves.

I so often wonder which of the happenings of these full and busy days they will remember. The tire rolling down the dirt road with the little boy chasing after it? The list of chores that weave the tapestry of our days? The nightly milking of the goat when all of the helpers seem to find their way to the milking stand?

Annabelle has recently voiced a strong desire to help more in the kitchen. “Can you teach me to make bread, Mama?” she asks when I’m just trying to finish one thing up and get to another. And this is where it gets hard. Soon her enthusiasm for dishes and kitchen-helping will fade, as it did for her brothers before they were employed full-time at the task. Soon she will speed things along and cross things off the list all by herself.

But oh, that list.

And so she is teaching me through it, me slowing down and showing her, her running in and out of the screen door as her interest comes and goes. Because sometimes dirt pies are more fun than kitchen cleanup. And sometimes where she wants to be is right there by my side.

I wonder if she’ll remember that too.