Years ago, when Chloe, then an only child, was three-years-old, I was home alone with her on a Saturday night. Melinda was out with a friend and I was reveling in the “alone-time” that Chloe and I were having. We made and had dinner together, and might have even watched a little TV while eating.

Decadent, I know.

After dinner, as her bedtime approached, Chloe was sitting at a little desk we had given her with a number of art supplies. Some crayons, tape, construction paper, and a pair of those little plastic scissors that only sorta-kinda work but are unlikely to cut a finger.

She was fully involved in her project, maybe at some deep level recognizing that if she engaged with me I would put a stop to it and insist she go to bed. I was definitely thinking that way but was simultaneously entertaining a conflicting thought to just let her be, mesmerized as I was by her depth of concentration and engagement. I swear the experience altered my brain chemistry and put me in a sort of meditative state.

So instead of putting her to bed, I reached for a pen and paper and found the words for a poem:

The Antique Pony, Chocolate Soup, and Staying Up Late

Saturday night sunset.
The moon comes up, big, orange, and bright,
casting shadows not from itself but as a reflection.
You sit undisturbed,
absorbed in the undiluted concentration of being 3.
Colored paper meeting scissors, manipulated by tiny hands.
Bedtime comes and goes and I ponder…
Do we tell time or does time tell us?

The antique pony reference is for a rocking horse we had in the house, and chocolate soup is the pudding Chloe and I had for dessert before it had fully thickened.

Chloe graduated from college in 2015 and as a graduation gift, I presented to her the poem in a frame, enhanced with drawings created for the occasion by my artist friend, Fish Astronaut (and who, as you likely know, illustrates my kindness writings).

That’s a copy of it to the left, obviously.

So much of parenting is an exercise in patience and attention. There is probably another version of me that stopped Chloe that night from her art project, anxious to get to watch a hockey game on TV in Melinda’s absence.

I think children have a lot of wisdom to share if we adults take the time to notice.