Lessons from the Barn

"I've got to clean out the stables since most of the horses are mine." That is what my daughter said as she swept under our dinner table. She was processing what her aunt had said to her a few days before when we had a chance to see her horses. That and she was making a chore fun in her usual way of pretending to be someone else. (I wonder who she got that trait from?) She was also speaking truth. If there aren't any horses in the barn, it stays clean, but it doesn't take on that warm, welcoming odor that is horse. There is no welcoming whinny when you open the door. Her words struck me in another context as I fixed dinner. If I wave goodbye to my little ones in the morning and welcome them from the bus at three in the afternoon, then my house has a chance of being swept and tidy. My garden might not be as full of weeds as it is of productive plants, but I would miss teaching my five-year-old to read, helping my seven-year-old write his first book, and getting binary lessons from my ten-year-old. I would miss so much if we didn't chose to home school. So today, I will attempt to smile as I make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, because my "barn" is warm and welcoming. It is filled to overflowing with joy and noise and life.