Do kids still lick Cheerios and stick them together to make cars and crosses and little people? Or Puffed Rice and stick them to their teeth? Do they wet an m&m on their tongue to paint their lips? The red ones were the best, but I haven’t tried the new blue.
Do they bury dolls, and crushed butterflies in matchboxes? Do they know the taste of dianthus blooms–they’re minty, or the sourness of the pretty pink azalea? Can they fool their sister with a glued on extra leaf to make a four-leafed clover, or have they hidden out of mother’s view to build a little fire to roast some grapes? Shoot tiny pine cones out of rifles when all the corks are lost, or pick the violets in April for the Blessed Virgin Mary and their moms? Or blown up magnolia petals into tiny balloons, or eaten sourgrass? My sister told me once that sourgrass only grew where rabbits pissed.
It would be sad to think these things are lost in history, untold and unrepeated acts and stories.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
After all our rain we have a bumper crop of weeds, including some lovely sour grass. You can’t beat those spectacular yellow blooms to improve the appearance of a lazy weeder’s garden.
I’ve been tempted to have a taste, but it doesn’t appeal to me now the same way it did as a kid, when I think there were days that was almost all I ate. I didn’t worry about who had peed on it (according to my sister it was dogs). I washed it, and figured it was as clean as lettuce from the store.
I do not know if children still do these things. I’d sure be sad to learn they don’t, so I’m afraid to ask.
In the bubble of my little world, children still do these things. Just yesterday, 3 yr old Olivia picked every “beautiful” yellow flower (weed) she could find and saved them for her mom in the prettiest vase we could find. Bobby dug old tennis balls, baseballs and (other treasures) out of the sewer drain for hours. They all had a grass whistling contest and then we all pretended we saw a cloud circus in the sky. One of those clouds really looked like an elephant! Kids will be kids, as long as adults allow them to be.
Rest Easy Ladies~
Kids do still play with food and nature! Little baby carrots are a favorite for my youngest daughter and my nephew. At 6 years old they could spend hours putting carrots in their noses pretending to be walrus’. Of course, I have also witnessed my toddlers chomping on flies or spiders from the window sills “ah, yuck! Get that out of your mouth” I say. “But, mama he’s crunchy!” Blahh! Oh, I’m so proud of my little bug eaters. Springtime brings out the tree licker in every kid around here because surely maple syrup is best right out of the tree! Who can forget the buttercups held under the chin…”Do you like butter?” Remember that? What about those tiny pink and white flowers that you pull the petals out of and suck the necter from? Confession, I still do that! Thanks for the memories! I needed this with my coffee today. I can smile now and you can bet I’ll be foraging my yard for lunch! 🙂
Oh, this is such good news–both to find that I wasn’t such a strange child, and that strange children still are out there exploring. I’m suspecting then, that the sourgrass story is true–just a matter of species. Am so tempted to grab a blanket and go cloud-watching today! Meredith–bugs?
No! No! Not foraging for bugs! Those sweet little flowers are what I’m looking for! Although I think they arrive later in the spring. Some say bugs are good though, full of protein. Gag.
I can remember playing out in a field and collecting all sorts of stray plants and roots, mixing them up in a pot of creek water and pretending we were making cowboy stew. We never tasted the stuff, though. I do recall it is nearly impossible to get the stench of wild garlic juice from hands after tearing it into cowboy stew!
Oh, right now I am back, 7 or 8 years old, playing with my nieghbors in our backyards, mostly pretending we were fairytale characters, ALWAYS building forts, using flowers and weeds in various capacities. We had a really great jungle of grapevines that had taken over much of top of the yard– all cleared now. I know someone who continued to make concoctions and stews from backyard plants, rocks and mud, until puberty– when everyone else would be mortified, “that’s baby stuff” (I’ll never tell).
How great to know I’ve brought back memories, and that memories are still being created for the future. It’s a good feeling.