Seeing the forest for the trees

"Let's go through the woods," she said, and I said, "What will we see in the woods?"

"We might see trees," she said, so we walked through the woods and sure enough, we saw trees. We also saw birds and squirrels and people walking dogs, but there's no denying that those woods are full of trees.

This is just one of the adventures I've been enjoying alongside a three-year-old perpetual motion machine. We have walked around a pond and fed the fish, and I watched her climb to the top of the climbing wall and call out, "I'm the king of the castle!"  

We have played in the sandbox and pulled weeds from the flower beds and waved at cedar waxwings. We have picked strawberries and squashed strawberries and eaten strawberries, and little E grated some lemon zest and stirred the batter for lemon bars.  

This evening we're mostly waiting and resting while her mommy works--or, more precisely, labors--to produce a new leaf on the family tree. Pretty soon little E will be a big sister and she'll have a chance to teach her baby brother so many important things, like where to find strawberries and how to be a king and what's the best place to find trees, but first we're learning how to wait, some of us more patiently than others.