Dandelion Fluff

There is something about those white puffs that pull kids toward them. They have this need to pick that stalk and blow the fluff off, spreading the dandelion seeds across the yard even as their dad cringes in thought at having to spray for weeds yet again.

We were outside walking toward Tom’s raspberry patch (sure, the girls enjoy the fruits of his labor, but this patch if all Tom’s, he waters, he weeds, he ties the stems up when they get too heavy, he picks the berries and freezes/preserves them, it’s totally his patch.) and Olivia called to me to wait.

I turned and watched her bend down to pick a dandelion seed head. She held it up for me to see and then blew the seeds off, watching them in joy as they flew about in the mild breeze.



Something so normal, so perfectly summery and it made me so thankful for my girl and her life. She’s just a little kid, like so many other little kids. She enjoys all the same things as kids her age. She’s had to work a little harder to do some of those same things but she doesn’t really know that.

And I’m okay with her not knowing how far she’s come. I’m okay with her just being a little girl who plays with Barbies and makes her daddy roll his eyes when she blows the seeds off dandelions. I can stand back and marvel in her normalness even as she embraces it as just being a kid.