The scene was about as quintessentially Summer as a lemonade stand, a tire swing or a drippy ice cream cone: My daughters chasing real live tadpoles.
There's acres and acres of nature to explore in the beautiful Morton Arboretum but my girls were content to spend the whole morning in a tiny pond catching baby frogs.
I don't think I'd ever seen one up close before. We had to laugh at the sight of them - inky fat drops, propelled by nothing but tail-dashes that wiggled in the funniest way. They looked like a child's drawing come to life, or something a little more suggestive, if you know what I mean.
I heard a mom ask her two sons, "Now isn't this better than video games?" and they nodded, eyes on the water. My imagination reeled out a vision of that morning in their house - the boys cemented to the couch, Mom prying them off with a crowbar. It took us forty minutes to get here; it will take twice that to get home. Worth it.
Warm wind, puffy clouds, my girls squealing in delight. Hello, summer. Where you been?
No comments:
Post a Comment