My Boy in Flowers

Captain Kindergarten brought me a handful of weeds yesterday with a big smile.  I thanked him and then put them on the porch steps while I chatted with the neighbors.  He ran off to have his love/hate relationship with the pit bull next door.  He loves to throw the pit bull his favorite stick, he hates it when the pit bull won't give it back.  And like most nutty relationships, dog and boy won't keep away from each other and end up dragging everyone in to mediate their madness.

When it was time to come in from the blue skied, almost eerily ominous warm, beautiful, tornado-less, torrent-less, day Captain Kindergarten saw his white, weedy gift limp on the grey steps. 

"We need to put these in water Mom," he said.

I indulged him.  I got one of our clear, tall glasses down from the cupboard and filled it with water.  I thought the water would make the flaccid flowers even more floppy.  That is what experience with weed resuscitation had taught me up to that moment.

But these weeds got prettier the second they touched the water.  They make me happy with their topsy-turvy, devil-may-care spouting and their white petals that are either trying to turn in or trying to turn out.  I'm not sure which.  And then they have those yellow middles that are firm and bright.

That is my Captain Kindergarten.  He is my imaginative boy always fighting dragons and destroying evil with crashes and bangs spouting in every cardinal direction.  He can be the naughtiest little boy and the sweetest, most affectionate thing and I'm never sure which is coming for me.  But he's got a middle that is so good.  It reminds me of his Dad and my heart is down-right attached to that yellowness. 

I think I found me one of my favorite flowers.