Morning Thanks--Mealtime

My first thought? My goodness, they're almost grown up--why do they act like kids? There's bird seed scattered all around them, but no, they need Mom to feed them? C'mon. Get a life.

I was standing behind a window at meal time. I didn't break up the ritual, and it went on and on because it wasn't not just a snack they were getting. Those kiddos were famished--and there were three of them, not just two. 

So Mom was busy. Her beggar brood was not easily or quickly satisfied. 

But then, it's what she does, I thought--she feeds her kids. Supper isn't some pastime. 

They would not be silenced. They were hungry, so all during the meal a madness of hooting and hollering came up from whomever wasn't being served. Frantic appeals, too, as if were they not to be fed, they'd toss themselves off the edge of the table and into oblivion. Mom had to work. Nobody ever claimed raising kids was a piece of cake.

And it's not just a ritual either. It's a job. You get pooped. You pick out the goods with your beak, choose your target, and just to make sure the kid doesn't spit it up or out, you deposit supper somewhere close to their belly buttons, make sure it gets there.

Now just look at the size of that kid's feet, for pete's sake. You can't help but think he or she ought to be scarfing down his own food, don't you? Had the four posed for a family portrait, had they stood there together like a bowling team, I wouldn't have been able to distinguish mother from child. 

Grow up. My word. You know?

Don't buy the bravado I'm spewing. I wasn't thinking about those kids being lazy. In truth, I was telling myself what an odd thing it is to be retired, to be so unbusy that you sit for a while and watch grace tease out a supper and can't help but think it's just the best thing you've seen all day. 

I'm thinking it's not a bad thing to keep your eyes on the sparrows in the backyard, not a bad thing at all. How could it be? This morning I'm thankful for being at a meal just outside my back door. I wasn't invited, but the whole thing was somehow it's own kind of sacrament.