The other night I was watching the kids while Clara worked. Ellie was taking a nap and Owen and I were outside playing. Owen is a worker, just like his mom. We spent a chunk of time in the front yard where he was mowing with his lawnmower. He chastised me for not mowing, but in my defense I had mowed the night before with my lawnmower. Though I don't mind looking the fool for my kids, pushing a lawnmower around my front yard without turning on the engine to amuse my son is just a bit too far. After mowing to his satisfaction he went through our yard and picked up all of the sticks to put in a wood chipper (he hands them to me and I make a buzzing noise). From there we moved to the backyard.
"Will you rake with me daddy?"
"Sure, buddy, let me go check on your sister first."
I went upstairs and Ellie was awake so I grabbed her and headed back down. When we got to the backyard Owen was working with his rake up close to the house in a spot that sees no sun throughout the year and therefore has no grass. He was raking the loose dirt into a pile and had grabbed his wagon and shovel out of the shed. I had watched him maneuver it out from the upstairs window. He then set about scooping up the pile he had raked and putting the dirt into his wagon. Ellie and I sat in the yard to watch.
He steered the wagon over to the swingset and began unloading the dirt beneath the slide area. It was 95 degrees that day, and humid. The sun was beating down and his entire head was soaked with sweat. After he stopped getting enough dirt in a shovel scoop to justify the use of the tool he reached with both hands and grabbed loose dirt and tossed it into his new pile.
Of all the innocuous moments of parenting, moments that bleed into one another and are quickly forgotten, there was something about this one that I wanted to cling to. This image of my nearly three-year old son glistening with sweat in the early summer sun grabbing fistfuls of dirt and throwing them under a swingset. The sun on his face, the dirt accumulating all over his body, sticking fast to the sweat. The simple, dexterous movements. The confidence in his abilities. The total focus on a (for an outsider) completely silly task. My son's whole body and mind were devoted to this act. He could not have been more content anywhere in the world. He craned his fingers into every nook and cranny of that wagon until he was satisfied that he had scraped free everything he could. Then he turned the wagon on its side and dumped what was left into his pile.
I didn't have the heart to tell him he could have saved himself some time and a mess if he had only started with that move. He'll figure stuff like that out when he gets older. But I am in no rush. I could watch my son empty dirt from a wagon for hours.
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