The weather has been beautiful and
my kids have been outside most of everyday. They have climbed trees, played
with the baby goats and stuck bare toes into the dirt while looking for worms.
So when the calendar reminded me that we had a regular check up at the doctor’s
office I did what every good parent does and pushed them into the bathroom to
wash their faces and scrub their little hands. We even changed clothes and
packed snacks. I was feeling like mother of the year, totally prepared, on time
with all my medical cards and had even brushed my own hair. Then it happened,
the nurse ushered us into a little room to measure and weigh them and said
“please take off your shoes” That’s when I realized that not only was my 4 year
old not wearing socks, but his feet looked like they hadn’t been washed since
the start of the Californian drought. Mud and grass clung to his little toes
and he left a muddy foot print on the scale. I was horrified as the nurse
pulled out the sanitizer wipes, wiping off the scale then offering me a wet
paper towel to clean my sons’ feet.
As I knelt down cleaning the caked
on mud off of his feet, feeling embarrassed that the nurse thinks I don’t bath
my son, I realized that those muddy toes had memories. Memories that will feed
his soul as he grows up, they know wet grass, the slippery cold feeling of dew
drops in the morning. They knew warm sticky mud, the kind that oozes between
your toes when you scrunch them up tight. His feet know the pain of a thorn
that feels so sharp that you think you will never walk again and then it’s gone
and you’re running again in the dirt like you have never been hurt before. They
know the way bark is ruff, but is so much easier to climb with your bare foot
to the top of the trees, because shoes slip but little toes can grab. It will
be this knowing of the earth, as an experience, that will allow his feet to be
roots, roots that dig his heart and soul deep into the dark rich soil of our
home and our family.
