Helping Hands

Leo, age four

At least once a day, something happens around here that makes me kind of cringe. Markers, crayons, water, paint, sand and on and on. Something happens.

And this is normal, I tell myself. I remember my mom sweeping the kitchen floor as the five of us would track pounds of dirt and grass through the house. We’d even run through the little mounds of dirt she’d neatly organized with no regard for the effort or the frustration of just having cleaned up for the tenth time that day.

So it’s my turn. I watch this destruction and this deconstruction daily. And we clean, we tidy, we encourage ‘clean up, clean up.’ And then this morning, the boys were at the zoo with Sara and I walked into an empty house and saw these two beautiful little hands. A remnant of chaos. I left it there, just because…