Did you know you don't have to teach children to chase fireflies and try to catch them? They just do. It's as innate as dancing in the sprinkler.
This evening my youngest talked two of his older brothers into coming outside into the moonlight with him for a game of laser tag. He came in just minutes later asking for jars. I asked why.
He tilted his head so he could peer reprovingly at me with his blue-grey eyes over edge of his wire frame glasses (I love it when he does this) and said, "For fireflies of course."
I directed him to use one of the wide mouthed canning jars.
"What are you going to do with them after you catch them?"
"Let them go, of course."
Of course. What in the heck to fireflies eat anyway?
I guess the idea of holding light in one's hands, if only for a few minutes, must be be irresistable.
4 comments:
Irresistible, even to me...
'I guess the idea of holding light in one's hands, if only for a few minutes, must be be irresistable.'
Is this not why we cannot keep our hands off our children? We want to touch them, brush the hair from their eyes, hug them, pat them....
I love fireflies. I don't catch them anymore. But I love to sit on the porch and watch them and listen to the echoing voices of childen who did. I hear my own voice, my brother's, my sisters', my cousins, my children, nieces' nephews'...oh. So many echoes. I hug them close to me, wrap them around myself like a shawl. And my heart is warmed.
You are so lucky. We will not see them for another month.
This too is hardwired into little boy's genes, right next to "drive mom insane" :-)
Thanks Dennis. Kind of right up there with the need to take everything apart? :)
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