Monday, December 24, 2012

Little House in the Big Woods

It's almost 11:00 on Sunday night and the kids are just getting to sleep. Gavriel has been gone since Tuesday night so we've been pretty lax around bedtime and wake up time. Avigayil and I didn't wake up today until almost 10am. Thankfully, it's been a pretty easy go of being alone with the kids this time. I think it's a combination of them getting older, homeschooling and me being in a particularly good parenting groove (they come and go so I enjoy them while they're here).  Now that I know Gavriel is scheduled to be home in a few hours, I am feeling my stamina waning, and very much looking forward to a break tomorrow. It's also just not as much fun without Gavriel around.

We had a mellow day today. We all got up late and then hung around in our jammies drinking tea, reading books and playing go-fish until almost noon when we had breakfast. Adin eventually went over to play at a friends house and the girls and I went to buy some honey-comb and go to the library. Aderet, who will be 8 in March, never got our of her feety pajamas. She just squeezed her fleeced feet into her boots and left the house that way. I figured, if she doesn't mind I guess I don't either; we just told everyone it was a self declared pajama day and that worked. 

Avigayil got excited about buying some honey comb after reading about Pa's adventures in collecting honey in Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I always like it when I'm able to accommodate those wishes. I've been reading the series out loud to all of the kids but there's something especially fascinating about it to me and Avigayil. I think there's something in both of our natures that longs for a life that's quieter and simpler. I find myself so drawn in listening to descriptions of Ma spending a good chunk of her day separating individual corn kernels from their hulls, making straw hats or cooking down pumpkin for pies.

Here's an excerpt from the end of the book that touched me:

    When the fiddle had stopped singing Laura called out softly, "what are days of auld lang syne, Pa?"

    "They are the days of a long time ago, Laura," Pa said. "Go to sleep now."
   
     But Laura lay awake a little while, listening to Pa's fiddle softly playing and to the lonely sound of the wind in the Big Woods. She looked at Pa sitting on the bench by the hearth, the fire-light gleaming on his brown hair and beard and glistening on the honey-brown fiddle. She looked at Ma, gently rocking and knitting.

    She thought to herself, "This is now."

    She was glad that the cosy house, and Pa and Ma and the fire-light and the music, were now. They could not be forgotten, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago.









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