One of our favorite things to do as a family is to walk about a quarter mile to the high school and walk on their state of the art track. Now that it's warmer the kids have been asking almost daily to "walk on track", as Teancom would say, but weather and time constraints have prevented us from doing it. Last night we told them we could go walk on the track, since it was lovely weather and we were all home with nothing better to do, but it was dusk by the time we got going, so we didn't have much time. The kids, of course, did not see this as a hinderance at all.
We all walked around the track except for Miciah who ran most of the way. She's doing the Kid's Flying Pig Marathon, where you log 26 hours over the course of a few months and then you do the last mile actually on the marathon track and you cross the finish line there, get the marathon T-shirt, the whole deal. She's excited about the marathon and talks constantly about logging her miles.
We told Miciah that since it was getting dark it would be okay if she did only a half mile and then we could come back and do another 2 laps another day. She didn't think that was acceptable, so I told her she'd have to go fast to finish before dark.
I have to say that I'm impressed with Miciah's determination. She had done 2 laps when I suggested that it was getting dark enough for her to stop. Elijah had peetered out after just one lap, so I was sitting with him on the bleechers, waiting for Miciah to be done. She said she NEEDED to finish that mile. So she ran almost the whole third lap and by the time she got back around it was dark enough that you couldn't see very well. I recognized the time of fading light from my childhood as the time of day that I KNEW I had to be in the door or my mom would not be happy that I wasn't home "before dark." I told Miciah she could only do the third lap if Daddy went with her, since I had doubts about being able to see her across the field. So Rob jogged after her and I sat quietly with Elijah.
I was watching their dark outlines, barely making them out, when Elijah said, "It's the Jesus star!" I was a little taken back, wondering what he was talking about. I turned and said, "What?" Elijah pointed directly across the stadium at the very first star of the night and said again, "It's the star that tells us that Jesus is born. When you can only see one star, that's the Jesus star." I smiled and thought about all the responses I could give. I could tell him that it's not really a star at all, but a planet. I could tell him that Jesus was born 2,000 years ago and was definitely NOT born again tonight. I looked again at the star and how beautiful it looked against the darkening sky, and how huge it looked, how bright. I thought about the pictures I've seen depicting Christ's birth and I decided to say, "That does look a lot like the star when Jesus was born, huh?" "Yeah," he said and looked intently at the star.
After a moment I said, "You know what you're supposed to do when you see the very first star of the night?" He looked at me, "What?" I continued, "You're supposed to make a wish." Elijah, always expressive, looked at me in complete awe, like only a 4-year-old can do. So I taught him the rhyme. After saying it through with him repeating the words, we said it together. He was kind of mumbling the first part with me: "Star light, star bright. First star I see tonight." So I said, "Wish I may," waiting for him to repeat it, and he said, "Wish I might," so I moved on to the ending: "Have the wish I wish tonight." I said, "And then you make a wish to yourself."
Clearly he missed what "to yourself" means, because he made his wish outloud: "I wish..." He put his finger to the side of his face like he does when he's thinking very hard. "Hmm." I smiled at this cute little boy thinking so hard about what his wish should be on the first star, and remembered making my own first star wishes with that same intensity. Elijah continued, "I wish I could pray to Jesus every day." I smiled even bigger. I don't remember what most of my wishes were, but I doubt that any of them were that I could pray every day! Elijah is a sweet boy, and his simple faith continually impresses me.
Then Elijah said, "Okay, Mom. It's your turn." "Oh," I said. "I wish..." I sat there thinking about what a good wish would be. It had to be something pretty neat, to follow up his great wish. Before I could come up with one Elijah said, "You wish we can read scriptures every day." I looked warmly at my son and repeated, "I wish we can read scriptures every day." He said, "Yes!!" and then, "And you wish you had a pet penguin."
I laughed. THAT's more like the 4-year-old wish I was expecting the first time. I hugged Elijah close, kissed the top of his head and said, "I love you, Elijah." He smiled, hugged me back, and said, "I love you, too, Mom."
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