The Garden?

I've just started this blog, but I copied over several posts from a previous site of mine that I used for keeping in touch with far-flung family. All posts prior to this one span about a year of time in order from most recent to oldest.

Why "Still in the Garden?" Well, it comes from an expression I used to use--and still have some occasion to use--when our kids showed that utter lack of self-consciousness that only kids have.

I remember the first time the expression came to me. We only had Hannah at the time, and she was just a toddler. She did what all little ones do when she had to, well, poop. She just did it. It didn't matter how many people were around or what they were doing. She just pooped, with all the accompanying facial expressions (furrowed brow, red face) and sounds. She might be in the midst of playing with a toy, just jaunting around the house, or even sitting at dinner table, and she'd proceed to do her thing while barely interrupting her play (or her walk, or her dinner).

Then, one day, Karl and I were sitting in the family room watching Hannah play with blocks in the floor. All of sudden she rose, walked over to the recliner, and ducked behind it. And she pooped back there! It made me a bit sad, so I looked at Karl and said, "Ohhh...she's not in the garden anymore!"

This is of course THE garden. Eden. Before serpents, apples, and fig leaves.

Now that Hannah is 8 and John is 4, neither one has too many "in the garden moments," but I love it when they do. On occasion John will get into his sister's clothes and put on a beautiful pink dress and model it for us downstairs. That's a garden moment. Or even Hannah, "old" as she is, will walk buck naked in front of our big living room window for all the world to see, and I'll be thankful that she's still got a bit of the garden in her, too. (Then I'll drag her out of the room and tell her to put some clothes on).

Just last year, Karl used the "garden" expression as part of a new song that he wrote for the kids. They love it.

These garden moments don't go on forever. Someday soon both of them will be nearly incapable of doing, saying, or even feeling anything without wondering if it's right, wrong, expected, discouraged, relevant, appropriate, normal, etc. That's okay and necessary, of course, but in the meantime I'm going to delight in the few and far between moments in the garden!