Five-Minute Friday: Finding Wonder in the Mudpuddle

I’m lying beside him in the top bunk, scratching his bony back and chatting about the summer we’ve shared. In mere days, he’ll hop on that big yellow school bus and head to first grade. But his mama needs closure as we flip the calendar page, confirmation that his brief season at home has been all that he’d hoped it would be.

It has been a summer of trying new things- of hiking mountains and rafting upon white waters, of riding ziplines and swimming in the deep end. I am certain he’ll name one of those moments as his most favorite.

He exhales a deep breath and hums a little as he thinks.

I stop scratching his warm skin and wait for his answer, my own impatience prompting me to silently guess which summer “wow” will rise to the top of his memories.

And then he says it, his voice oozing with pleasure. “Do you remember that day that you let me use the garden hose to turn the dirt at the end of our driveway into mud?”

I think back through the summer months and try to recall the garden-hose moment.

I can remember that hike to the mountain peak, his smile after launching himself off the high dive, his happy dance at the end of his first little league game. But I can’t recall the moment of which he speaks. It was just one of a thousand ordinary-old-moments in the yard with my little boy. One of countless mud-making, dirt-digging escapades that we’ve shared on squatted knees.

He continues, despite my quiet. “And I got out all of my little tractors and bulldozers and backhoes and I ran them through the mud just like the real workers do….”

He is smiling now, I can see his white teeth in the moonlight. He exhales a satisfied sigh and laces his small fingers through mine. “And you stirred up the puddle with a big stick and made all kinds of ripples in the mud so my excavator would  have to jump the waves. And then Maggie dropped her Polly Pockets in there, too, and I had to use my little firetruck to save them….” his voice fades as he lies lost in thought.

 “That was the best day, Mom,” he whispers as he rolls onto his side and succumbs to sleep. 

 I am left squished between my happy boy and the wooden rail of the top bunk, left to my own thoughts as his warm breath brushes moist against my arm. 

And I am reminded once again of just how extraordinary the ordinary stuff of life can be when it’s viewed through the eyes of a child. I lie there wishing I could remember that day on the driveway, wishing I’d taken a mental snapshot of my boy, splattered with dirt, of the way his bright smile must have rivaled the sun on that ordinary summer’s day. And, not for the first time, I am humbled by my own compulsion to chase the pinnacle thrills rather than enjoy the pedestrian journey, to seek mountain-top-marvels when wonder waits in a mud-puddle.

Our children don’t need us to infuse their world with awe; we have a Creator who has already done that.

They simply need mamas who are willing to join them in the dirt and celebrate the gift of ordinary life together. 

 Linking with Lisa-Jo and so many other lovely writers for Five-Minute Friday. 

Today, we’re writing for five minutes about the word “ordinary,” just pouring our hearts on the page, uncensored, imperfect, and real.  Care to join us?

Don’t go yet— I’d love to know about a wonder-filled, ordinary-old mud-puddle moment of YOURS! Would you take a moment to share in the comments?