Being Mommy

Hello! It’s nice to meet you!

My name is Rayna. I am only a little girl right now, but someday I’m going to be a princess. Or maybe a scientist. I haven’t decided.

I want to tell you a story…

I was going for a walk in the woods with my mom and my little brother when I spotted an interesting object. Now I must tell you that I find lots of interesting objects because I am always on the lookout for them. Whether I am in the woods, in class, at home, or even in a restaurant, I am constantly searching for great things. You never know what you might find if you keep your eyes and ears and nose open.

I mention keeping your nose open because this is just how I found the interesting object that day. I was just walking along, gazing at the beautiful green leaves covering the bushes and trees, feeling the breeze lift my hair just a little, and wishing my little brother weren’t there ruining it all with his nonstop jabbering (that means talking baby-talk). My little brother is a whole other story. He’s only one, and he jabbers all the time. Sometimes it’s hard to think properly with all that jabbering going on all day long.

Anyway, I was just trying to enjoy the woods when a really yucky smell entered my nose. I mean really gross. I wanted to run away from it, but I would have gotten in big trouble with Mom for doing something like that. I tried to plug my nose with my fingers, but once a smell gets into your nose, you really can’t get it to leave until it decides to go all on it’s own. It’s kind of like how the flavor of cold medicine sticks in your mouth for hours after you take it, no matter how much milk or water you drink afterwards.

Since I couldn’t just run away, and the smell wasn’t leaving my nose just yet, I started looking for whatever it was that smelled that way. I thought if I could find the thing that smelled so bad, I could make my Mom walk away from it. I looked under trees and inside bushes, under rocks and around the stream, but I couldn’t find it. I checked over by a group of flowers, but it wasn’t there either.

As I walked around one of the bigger trees, something caught my eye. The funny this is that it wasn’t the bad smelling thing, it was another thing. It was a glass stone, deep red and perfectly smooth, like it had been rubbed for years by the water in the stream until there were no flaws left. It was about the size of my thumb, and shaped like an oval, and it was just sitting there in the piles of fallen leaves on the ground.

I picked it up and looked at it a little closer. It wasn’t even dirty. It was simply perfect.

“Mom,” I said, “look at what I found!”

“Where did you find that?” my mother asked.

“Just behind that big tree,” I replied. “Can I keep it?” I wanted to keep it very badly, and held my breath waiting for my mom’s answer.

“I don’t see why not. What are you going to do with it?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. I’ll tell you when I decide.” I was so happy to hear that I could keep the stone, but I couldn’t think of what to do with it! What use can you do with a perfectly smooth, deep red, glass stone?

I spent the rest of the walk gazing at the stone and trying to figure out what to do with it. I knew Mother wouldn’t just let me keep it on my desk because she would be afraid my little brother might swallow it. If I put it up on the wall, it would be too far away to really enjoy its beauty.  I thought of keeping it in a small box, and taking it out once in awhile to look at it, but something really beautiful shouldn’t be hidden away and only looked at once in awhile, don’t you think?

I found myself pondering this problem all through the day and even during dinner. My mom told my dad about the stone, and he also wanted to know what I was going to do with it.

“I don’t know yet,” I told him when he asked me about it.

“Well, Rayna,” he said, “you’d better figure it out soon. I don’t want it lying around the house until your brother gets it.”

“I know, Dad, I know,” I said. “I’ll figure it out.”

For the rest of the night I sat there on the couch with my stone, just looking at its deep red shine and feeling its soft smooth surface. But I still couldn’t figure out what to do with it.

I decided to sleep with the stone under my pillow that night. I thought maybe if it was close to my head, I could dream about it and figure out a solution to my problem that way. I have lots of dreams, and sometimes when I tell them to my mom or dad, they can explain my dreams in a way that helps me solve my problems. My parents are great that way, always helping me out when I need it.

So that night I went to bed with the little red stone under my pillow, just waiting for a great dream to come and solve my problem!

…to be continued…