Fighting Dragons and Motherhood

What does this look like to you?

A whisk, you say? HAH! (egh--the buzzer sounds) Wrong!

Gwen was helping me in the kitchen and found this treasure in "her" drawer... pulled it out and shouted: "I fight da dragons!"

and thus began our over an hour long adventure

--a fun activity that we have done several times since that first day--

of fighting dragons.

Sometimes she wants me to wield the sword,

sometimes I'm only there to open the doors behind which the dragons are hiding.

Sometimes she is also a princess wearing a dress to fight those dragons,

other times she says she is looking for Philip.

Always there is sneaking involved

(usually Gwen quotes a song from library story time and whispers,

"I sneaking as slooowlyyyyy as I caaaaaan.")

And when the dragons are all defeated, there is usually some kind of celebration.

I love that I had and took the time to create this memory with her. She will forget, I'm sure, but I will always remember what a simple pleasure it was to encourage her imagination and fight those dragons together! It struck me that this sort of thing is exactly what makes motherhood worthwhile in the day to day ordinariness of routine:

taking those fleeting opportunities to love.