Pure and Innocent Chickweed

So, in my last post, I wrote,

"While looking up the definition of crunchy I happened across the word chickweed. This has nothing to do with being crunchy or not, I just thought it was an interesting word. It refers to pink weeds, or those little flowers our children bring us from the backyard."

The reason I said I would write more about that later is my son. He is not quite 20 months old and doesn't understand what makes a weed a weed. He was in the backyard with me picking dandelions and these little purple flowering things (I don't know what they are). He was also picking blades of grass and delivering those to me as well. He was very proud of himself and kept asking me, "is it?"

At first I kept telling him, weeds, flowers or grass. Then he brought me a clover. Again he asked what it was and I answered, "it's a clover." As he continued around the backyard, I realized the dandelions remaining in the grass looked kind of cheerful; little bursts of yellow light in a sea of green. The purple flowers were on weeds my husband and I used to curse when in pursuit of our golf course lawn. And let's not even start with the clover.

But to my son, they are all something new and different. The grass, the dandelions, the little purple flowers and the clover. He doesn't undertand the difference between a tulip in the flowerbed and a pretty yellow dandelion amidst the grass. None of these were weeds until it was decided by people who didn't want them in their way. There is something inocent and pure about a little boy delivering what he thinks are beautiful and exotic specimens to his mommy.

The next time he came over to me with a clover I gave him a hug and said, "thank you." He looked at me and said, "kanka you," and walked off with the dog in tow.

Pure and innocent. I want him to stay that way as long as possible. His baby sister, too. That is the reason I am crunching along, my children.