Together... {Friday word prompt at "The Grove"}

{Today I’m joining the Grove community over at Velvet Ashes, writing five minutes on the prompt “together”… Come and join!}

Five minutes. Unscripted.  Real and raw...

GO.

This week my poor, teething 13-month-old has been crying almost non-stop.  (That was a lot of hyphens, but that’s how my week has felt - minute-to-minute hyphens, with barely pause to take a breath.)  Some days it feels like if she could crawl back inside my womb, she would…

Yesterday I finally grabbed the flowerpots I had bought earlier in the week (in my one free hour of sans-kids time), and went outside gasping for some fresh air.  I brought my sweetie with me, since she needed air as much as I did, even if she wasn’t a big fan of her new “outside” boots… we sat together in the back yard, and dug in the dirt for a while.

Back up to an hour earlier, when my six-year-old flatly refused to do his reading lesson for the day, and I’d spent over 60 minutes cajoling, threatening, and finally bribing (combined with a promise from Daddy to come home and take over) before he finally gave in… still kicking and screaming.  Literally.  But we did our lesson together, and we had our promised hot chocolate bribe, and then I took myself, my camera, my pots and my sweetie outside.  Phew.  

So here we are, digging in the dirt, and I’m realizing how peaceful it is.  Ruby’s not crying.  She’s completely quiet, absorbed in lifting tiny bits of dirt out of one pot and pouring them into another.  Then she lifts her pot up and dumps the little dirt she’s gathered straight into her lap.  (Blueberries for Sal comes to mind.)  Then she starts over.  She does this, completely unaware I’m watching, totally absorbed in the dirt, happy just to be outside, with me.  Together.  

So I have a choice.  

I can resist and resent her clinginess.  Or, I can cling back, and enjoy every moment she wants to spend together, knowing that the day will come very soon when those pink-booted feet will run in the opposite direction.  

Together can be suffocating, or it can be good.  I choose good.  

STOP.  

(Links and photos added after my five minutes was up...)