Stop & smell the daylilies

Our daughter Scarlett is a character.  She's four (and a half!) and has more energy than the rest of us combined.  She has a creative mind and a vivid imagination.  Her stuffed dog named Martha is often "responsible" for things I was unaware that stuffed animals were capable of.  We often have to threaten to make Martha sleep outside, because we've found that she "barks" at bedtime, which keeps poor Scarlett awake.  Scarlett also has a whole houseful of imaginary animals - Max the dog, Sam the cat, Towerlick the fox, Kuchina the ladybug, and others.  Thankfully, they don't shed or eat much.

It doesn't take much to keep Scarlett occupied.  She's content to tell stories as she runs around the back yard, and she can turn a stick or a box into a whole afternoon of fun.  The problem is, she has so much fun playing by herself, that she doesn't always have time for kids at her school.  If they don't want to play what she's playing, she'll just play with her imaginary friends and have a fun time.  We're trying to affirm her imagination, while encouraging her to learn to play with others.

This summer, she's had lots of time to play with other kids, during her sister's softball games.  There's a bunch of other younger siblings who run around the sports complex, playing together.  There's no playground, and they're not the type of kids to sit and watch the game, so they make their own fun.  I think they created at least 3 different activities with the rocks they found near a walkway.  Granted, one of those activities involved throwing the rocks, but we put an end to that quickly. 

Last night during a game, Scarlett came over for a drink of water, and I looked at her face.  Her whole nose was crazy-yellow.  Did she take a bite of somebody's hotdog and put her nose in the mustard?  Then I realized what happened.  Scarlett's a kid who can't pass up a puddle that could be jumped in.  She hardly passes a flower without smelling it.  And she found the only batch of daylilies in the whole sports complex, stuck her nose in good, and took a big whiff, covering her nose with pollen.  It turns out that pollen sticks on skin pretty stubbornly, so she sported the yellow nose for most of the night.

Sometimes, Scarlett's curiosity and free-spirited explorations get her into things I'm not crazy about.  But more often, she reminds me that there are a lot of things we grown-ups don't take time to enjoy in the summer.  We don't take time to climb trees, catch fireflies, walk barefoot through puddles, or smell the flowers near often enough.  So for the weeks that are left of summer, I've resolved to enjoy some of it like a kid, because it sounds much more fun than just talking about the weather.  So go ahead.  Stop and smell the daylilies.  I don't know if they're very fragrant, but you'll get an awesome yellow nose.