marbles

When Grammie was here visiting this year, she bought Bundle Brother a small bag of marbles.  It didn't take long before she wondered if that was the best idea.  He is three years old after all.  For some reason, my kids love little treasures and have never lingered too long in the phase of putting things in their mouths.  Even Babydoll likes to tote around the "balls".  


While packing, I stumbled upon an old bag of marbles from my childhood that I undoubtedly stole from an older sister.  They were still being stored in that bright purple cloth bag ;).  You know the one, girls.  Anyway, I took them out and added them to Brother's growing collection.  There are days when they are kept at arm's length and loaded up in all kinds of different trucks and purses and size 4 Babydoll boots.  They are cherished.


The thing with little marbles is they roll.  Well, duh.  But if one happens to slip out of the grip of an unsuspecting child, it rolls away.  Consider the mayhem when all the marbles go spilling from a tilted open purse.  Your eye can't even follow which direction they are spinning.  Of course you don't know how many you are looking for either.  You scoop up the ones in plain view and are able to restore peace to the moment.  For now.


Over the next day or two you randomly see a marble here and there.  One sitting lonely against a wall.  Another at the bottom of a car bucket.  A swipe of an exposed dog hair ball from under the bookshelf unearths yet another rolling glass marble that you didn't even know was missing.


Last night My Love took the kids upstairs to give them a bath and I got busy vacuuming and mopping the downstairs.  It is so much easier to knock that job out when I don't have little people to hustle out of the way (and who walk on wet floors right after I finish mopping).


Before I aimlessly poked the vacuum extension underneath things, I took an intentional  look at what was hidden there first.  Little toys have a habit of getting lost under couches and desks.  Through this process of crouching down and opening closets and picking up rugs I found marble after marble.  One here.  One there.  One more to add to the bag-o-marbles already full to capacity.  Who even knew we had so many?  I mean, the kids are completely content playing with the ones they know about.  They are thankful.  Of course they both prefer the few large ones and a couple of the really colorful little ones, but the rest seemed like innumerable gifts.  Too many to count and yet not noticeably different from one another.


So last night, I "counted".  Not in the literal sense.  But every time I found a marble in the most random of places while cleaning, I thanked the Lord for yet another unexpected gift.  A treasure in fact among hair balls and toy clutter.


And yet isn't that our every day lives?  We treasure the big noticeable gifts (ie. healthy family, happy kids, jobs that provide, a roof over our heads...) and don't even see so many we overlook or take for granted (ie. a thoughtful word from your son to his sister, a break in the storm clouds, spilled milk, pee on the bathroom wall...).  But there they are hidden in back corners waiting to be discovered and counted when intentionally looking for them.  

Babydoll's little bag is full of marbles today.  Some added in the night while I vacuumed that she didn't even know she was missing.

Thank you Lord for marbles.  The big ones, the colorful ones,and  the plain hidden ones found only when crouched down hunting for them.