The sweetest of sweet things today...
For Christmas, Fruit Bat got a rock polisher. I was the genius who bought it for him, thinking, Oh, it'll take, like, a day to shine those pebbles up. He'll love this!
He did love it, yes, but the polishing cycle takes closer to three weeks. If you're lucky. So, for the past 21 days, give or take, we've had a rocks tumbling around a plastic cylinder in our garage. I tried not to think about the power we were using, or hear the constant grind as a slurry ground stones to glassy, little beads.
Finally, yesterday, it finished. We dumped out the rocks and Fruit Bat set right to work making jewelry. Necklaces, rings and keychains mostly.
He tucked one of the freshly minted necklaces into his backpack. When I picked he and his friend Anna up after school today, he handed her the necklace and said, "I made this for you."
"Thanks!" she said, sincerely delighted. I helped tie the cord around her neck.
We all trounced to my car and I thought, How beautiful. How innocent. In three or four years, maybe less, handing a necklace to a girl will be fraught.
But for now, it is just a small gesture of friendship.
*sigh* Those were the days. How lovely to be on this end of a boy's life. To see him before the exhange is "fraught"...
Lovely. Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: JCK | January 19, 2010 at 10:16 PM
How very sweet!
And I know what you mean about those rock tumblers... our garage was also our game room.
Posted by: kcinnova | January 19, 2010 at 11:11 PM
That is really sweet. I still remember when my boy-friend Shannon in first grade gave me some clip on earrings. I was so happy. Innocently happy. Not fraught!
Posted by: Leslie | January 20, 2010 at 03:24 PM
Oh! That's beautiful! (Not the three weeks part -- wow -- who knew THAT?)
That is one sweet guy you got there.
Posted by: breedemandweep | January 20, 2010 at 05:56 PM
That is SO sweet!
Posted by: Rachael | January 22, 2010 at 04:35 PM
Wow. That made my day...the lovely innocence and natural generosity of youth!
Posted by: Cactus Petunia | January 22, 2010 at 09:02 PM
*grin*
We gave the Eldest a rock tumbler for his birthday, and I'm dreading the day that the missing rock tumbling sand stuff arrives.
I was all set for a heartfelt oyyy, but what a sweet story! I'm thinking now that maybe we go buy earplugs and just deal, eh?
(how loud is that thing, anyway? we live in an apartment...)
Posted by: Miryam | February 01, 2010 at 07:29 AM