Oh all the Leaves

How I remember as a child loving this time of year more than any (I still do, but for different reasons). The cool, crisp nights; the smell of burning fireplace fires filling the streets; and oh the leaves, the wondrous, glorious, humongous piles of leaves fit for jumping, throwing, just hanging out in. Somewhere along the line the leaves lost their magic, perhaps it was when dad made the rule that we could only jump in the piles that we made (way to bribe us into yard work!); perhaps it was when I realized all the nastiness that really is a pile of leaves on the ground: the dog pee, the bugs, the bird poo, the countless other germs and insects that had surely gathered on the leaves in their journey from spring growth to our lawn. This weekend, the leaves regained some of their magic for me. Truth be told, I do very little of the yard work in our house, except for taking care of the garden, the yard is generally Kevin's territory. Luckily our yard is mostly pine trees, so we don't get an over abundance of leaves- generally. It seems this year though, that every neighboring tree chose to drop its leaves on our side of the fence (how is that fair- they are not our trees- yet we get all the leaves!) All of those leaves had blown nicely to our patio- where they formed their own mass leaf-graveyard. So yesterday- a perfect fall day if I do say so - Kevin went to work with his leaf blower to take care of the leaves, but not before Matthew got to enjoy some childhood fun.

It is amazing to me that I would not only let, but actually encourage my child to jump in, roll around in, throw all around these leaves that are certainly just as germ infested as the leaves of my childhood. Yet, when we saw the look on his face, that look of "oh my gosh this is soooo much fun" how could we tell him to stop? Because really- this is what childhood is all about isn't it? And for just a few moments we didn't look at those leaves as the chore that needed to be cleaned up, we didn't see them as the germyness that they are, we saw them as our son's favorite new toy, and we laughed and smiled just as much as he did with every jump, every roll, and every throw in the big pile of leaves.