Wednesday, June 11, 2008

All creatures great and small, but in this case very small

As we were leaving day camp today, Firecracker stopped to pick up a Styrofoam cup filled with dirt. "Is that a plant?" I asked. She examined the cup, looking for her name. "No, a worm!"

Hmm. I imagined running across a cup of dried up dirt with a dessicated worm several weeks from now. "I think we should let him go--so he can dig into the dirt and enjoy the rain." That's what we did when we got home. We tipped him and the dirt out into the grass behind our apartment, close to a little wooded area.

Later she asked to go back out to look for him. We took our flashlights and gently prodded the little mound of dirt with a twig, but worm had no doubt burrowed into safety (if a bird didn't find him, a possibility I did not mention). Well, not long after that Firecracker began sobbing, "I miss Wormy." I had to take her aside and say a little prayer for Wormy's safety. And again when I tucked her in she said that she missed him so much. I promised we would look again in the morning.

Did I mention that her sister will soon be off to Los Angeles for three weeks?

4 comments:

  1. That is so cute!

    I love the way you spend time with your kids doing what thy feel is important.

    I'm sure Wormy is fine.

    He just has a lot of work to do, mixing the lord's soil and all, and can't hang out too long visiting.

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  2. Maybe she's already "missing" her sister, though as a kid I got attached to animals easily. Cherish her innocence.

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  3. I'll help you replace Wormy one day -- I have a worm bin I used to keep in the kitchen to eat up the various and sundry bits of vegetable waste. We had hundreds of worms and lots of good wormy compost.

    Chaos and Entropy lost it when Tweety Bird the Lizard died. Not during the three funerals previously -- not all the trips to the hospital and so forth, but when the lizard died.

    I think it was something "small enough" for them to focus on.

    Prayers you way -- you are on my "daily" list.

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  4. Curious: Yes, I've been telling Firecracker about all the important work Wormy has to do, and we pray for him each night.

    Shel: If she feels this way about a worm, what am I in for when DramaQueen leaves?

    Rev Mom: Thank you for your prayers. As for the worm bin, all I can say is "ewww."

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