White Shadows
Tessa woke us up this morning. As she was talking with us, trying to get us to wake up and get moving, she noticed something on the covers.
“White shadows” she said excitedly! (Never mind that she says everything excitedly.)
She was pointing at the bright spots of light where the sun was making its way through and around the shades. My still sleep-numbed brain tossed about for another word or phrase to describe the sun-dappled scene that had entranced our daughter. No, it seemed to me that “white shadows” was quite good enough, and a remarkably adroit phrase for a 4 year old.
footnote: It says something about the world that our children learn first about the dark, scary shadows at night in their rooms, before ever being given a word for the kisses of sunlight in the morning. Perhaps the latter is so much bigger, so much better, that it is hard to wrap up in a simple word.
May 19th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Ha, that’s very cool. I love how kids see things through different eyes than adults and come up with very accurate expressions we wouldn’t think about because of all our “knowledge”. ‘White shadows’… interesting, I’ll have to remember that.
May 20th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
I thought it was such a fascinating “turn of phrase”. Kids are so good at that sort of thing, since they see everything with fresh eyes. Maybe that’s why Jesus admonished us to come to him as little children.