Children's Joy Is Contagious
/The Boston Herald
Six of them came for the weekend, five children and their mother. The mother and the two littlest ones left Sunday afternoon, and three stayed. Ages 12, 10 and 8, they are still sleeping at 9 o'clock on Monday morning.
I have tiptoed around the house since dawn, sneaking down the steps, shushing the dog, whispering to my husband, soundlessly making coffee, barely running the water, using whatever coffee beans I can find, not grinding fresh ones because I don't want to wake the children. I read the papers in silence, trying to absorb as much news as I can because once they race down the stairs I won't care about world events anymore.
Then the trivial will consume me waffles, who wants them and who doesn't? Who'd rather have cereal? Milk? Juice? What should we do this afternoon? Swim? Shop? Go to a movie? The Aquarium? Ride the Swan Boats? Hang out at Fanueil Hall? Then it will be a cacophony of questions “Can I sit in the front seat?” “Can I sit in the front seat on the way home?” “What should we wear?” “Where's my brush?” “Where's my watch?” “Has anyone seen my shoes?”
It's a familiar routine, making sure everyone's ready. Making sure everyone's been to the bathroom. Piling into the car. Getting all occupants strapped in. Getting where we're going. Being there for just a minute, then everyone needing a bathroom once more and everyone, of course, hungry again.
Their being here is a long-anticipated vacation for them - they live on a farm in New York and have been clamoring to come all summer long. Tabitha has written letters every day, counting the days. Surprisingly, despite the chaos they bring with them, despite their stories and their wants and needs, it has been a vacation for me, too.
You hang around children and something wonderful happens. The world neither looks nor feels quite so bad anymore. The news is remote, like a storm brewing somewhere far away. The distant thunder fails to keep your attention because an 8-year-old climbing -- on your lap, giving you a hug, and declaring that this is the best day of her entire life, becomes the mind grabber. She and the moment are what suddenly matter.
“This is the best mall we've ever been to, Beverly,” the 8-year-old effused yesterday. “This is the best candy store. I love the nail polish you bought me. Thank you so much for the ice cream. I love your TV. I love your house.”
Xena, of the sincere hyperbole, keeps you smiling all day. The older two are less effusive but just as easily smitten with the world. You break open a small bank and divide the booty and though a baggie full of change is hardly a king's ransom, they act as if it is. You set them loose in a book store and tell them they can buy any book they want and adults with coveted tickets to Barbra Streisand are never this happy. You let them just browse in a toy store and they're content.
Joy spills from these children. They are 'Little House on the Prairie' kids used to gathering eggs and doing chores and pitching in and looking after one another because this is the way life is on a farm. When they come here life is different. Here, for at least a while, they are indulged, pampered and spoiled.
And so am I. They paint my toenails green, blue, red, orange and gold. They argue over who is going to sit next to me. They tell me all about their friends at school and their teachers, too, and what they learned last year and what they will learn next year. They beg me to come swimming with them, come sit and watch TV with them, come be with them, because, though they're having a grand old time all by themselves they would have an even better time if I played with them.
Playing - that's what all this is. It may look like work, the carting around, the caring for and attending to. And it may even feel like work, sometimes, when the kids are your own and not just visitors who will return home in a few days.
But even when it's work, it's fun. That's the magic of children. Their joy is contagious. You hang around them for a while and it always rubs off.
