| After an hour or so of playing with his cars he then says, "I wanna go outside." |
| The beautiful little love of my life, Ramiro. |
| Always an angel? I wish! |
| "I wanna play outside," the words of the two year old love of my life, my nephew. Ramiro is his name and getting into things is his game. He has given me a very different outlook on the world, a look far different than mine, a look far less shallow and careless than mine. While he continues to grow and learn different rules of the earth or ways to interact with its many wonders, for example insects, I have been fortunate to be right beside him during the beginning of his life's journey with nature. |
| "I WANNA PLAY OUTSIDE." by Maggie Shearrow |
| He was ready to explore the world after his first breath of air. His eyes opened to see his first sights of this world, a world he had only heard from inside my sister's belly. What a change, I thought, here is this little creation ready to be molded and disciplined to fit the standards of the world. I was going to be a big part of this learning process. I couldn't wait for the next day to come to be able to take him home. It was winter outside therefore we took him home clothed in a heavy blue fleece body suit. Wow, we all couldn't wait to change his first diaper, to hear his first word and to watch his first step. |
| If I can only remember those first years of excitement: days of endless hours of exploring the unknown, making friends with squirrels and insects, not having a care in the world. My nephew apparently has the same subconscious question as I did when I was young, "What do I get into next?" I am sure that this question is universal though. I don't understand why and didn't think about it at the time but I wanted him to grow up fast. Mainly because that is the speed at which I am moving now, fast. In other words I easily take life for granted and not cherish it as does my nephew. It's not so much that he cherishes it but that he is learning the rights and wrongs as he grows. As for me, life is already past the point of exploring but rather just to survive now I have to incorporate those rights and wrongs to everyday living. |
| Exploring my backyard is where my love for nature began. Being able to see my nephew begin his journey has been an incredibly breath taking experience this past two years. If I am sitting inside watching television and he gets tedious playing with his cars he will walk up to me and say, "I wanna play outside." The tone of his voice, the sweet little voice of an angel that no one can resist is what I hear every time he wants to go outside. Of course I can not say no. When outside Ramiro and I usually sit on the grass and look up at the trees. I always turn my attention to his face as he looks up at the trees and can feel the strong sense of wonder in his eyes. His beautiful big brown eyes gaze up at the treetops while pointing his little index finger to a bird's nest. The next words are always, "what's that?" Because of my unfortunate dealings with bigger family problems within my household I truly do not remember those days of my childhood. I find myself falling in love with his reactions to new encounters and sharing his amazement with them as well. This sharing always results in my deeper appreciation for the natural world. |
| His first encounter with a squirrel was quite funny. In my backyard there are always squirrels in the trees either playing with each other or eating. My nephew walked out the back door with me following and saw that a squirrel was feasting on a nut at the base of a tree, he ran up to the squirrel and tripped on the way. Good thing the grass was his cushion. As many pediatricians say at that age, baby's bones are still "made of rubber" and falls aren't as harmful. He popped back up and turned to say with a huge smile on his face and eyes wide open, "Maggie, squirrel run!" Of course I agreed and laughed. The excitement he felt was portrayed with his huge teeth bearing smile. I again felt that flash of a warm loving sensation throughout my body. I was in tune with his enjoyment of unknowingly making a long time beautiful childhood memory. Because my nephew does not understand that respect is one of the key factors in interacting with nature I can only pray that he lives to appreciate his natural surroundings in the future. This is a lesson that I have learned just recently. I was anxious to share with him the story of that squirrel's life and how when we sneak up on him like that his only natural tendency is to run away. I told him next time to just be patient and look at him from afar. It was not too long after his squirrel encounter that he saw his first "polie polie" I usually call them rolie polies. We were playing basketball in the backyard; I had my basketball and he had his little cushioned non-rubber ball. The ball rolled to the end of the driveway and he went to retrieve it. Underneath his ball were several rolie polies. When he sees crawling insects for the first time he usually stands there and watches for a few moments but as the insects was headed in his direction he had forgotten about the ball and started kicking the ground. I walked over to see what he had gotten himself into but instead saw no threat with the rolie polies so I bent over to pick one up. It's funny that every time I do this with any new insect he encounters now he can take it from my hands and play with it but with that first rolie polie he was terrified. He looked at the bug, pointed at it, and asked, "What's that?" I replied by saying a rolie polie and he mimicked, "a polie polie?" Being able to spend time with him outside experiencing the many wonders of nature has been a very joyful time in my life. He is now starting to learn the different sounds animals make and also being able to point those animals out in a picture book. While learning these animal sounds I try to give him a more realistic approach by showing him real live animals. The first animal for him to see was the cow. He and I took a drive one day and stopped alongside a pasture which was home for over a hundred cows. There were a few along the fencing so I pulled over and walked him over to them to see his reaction. He was a bit frightened at first but after that past he was ready to meet, Frederick Manchester Simon III also known as "the cow." I usually crack dumb jokes like that and then have to think to myself oh, my nephew is only two he's not going to laugh. After this joke he did laugh; I was sure that it was a scared laugh rather than a funny laugh. |
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