The fellas and I were walking the two blocks home from our local library, where we'd just attended a farm-themed children's story and craft time. It was around 4 in the afternoon, that magical time of day...for photographers. Four o'clock is usually a very stressful part of my day, when I am exhausted, all of us are hungry and the kids are bored of playing with...everything... and I have to start making dinner. Believe me, I am not taking pictures at 4:00 in this house - it's not very pretty.
We'd exhausted all of our daytime play things - I'm pretty sure it was a Thursday, before they started their fall Thursday morning storytimes - and we were ready to go do something, anything.
I don't remember the story, just that I was simultaneously trying to help N spread Tacky Glue with a paint brush and directing him to attach the Cheerio "wool" to his sheep before it dried, helping M spread frosting with a tongue depressor to decorate a "sheep" cookie with mini-marshmallows, and feeding C the Cheerios and mini-marshmallows I snagged for him from the craft tables.
Then we all made those awesome chicken hats!
The boys were walking ahead of me and C on the sidewalk, their chicken wings flapping in the breeze. The sun was low on the horizon behind me, and I saw suddenly and graphically why this time of day is so magical for photographers.
Both boys ran into a neighbor's lawn and plucked the fluffy dandelions, blowing a million seeds glittering into the sunlight.
They laughed hilariously and dashed to pick another.
I stopped in my tracks, amazed at the absolute beauty of my chicken-headed four-year old sons frolicking in the dandelion glitter.
Thank you, God, for these tiny, shiny, glimpses of heaven, when I am suddenly and brilliantly able to see my children the way you see them.
It lasted about 5 seconds, long enough for me to make a mental note to take a picture of them at home so that I could sometime record this story and tell them about the day I saw a glimpse of heaven in a chicken hat.
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