I haven’t watched LOST yet – I will soon, promise. In the meantime, here are some photos I took of Hazel the other day. I hauled a bunch of my beads down to the dining room table from the loft to do some work there in the afternoon while she occupied herself with her books and toys (and the dog, and the cabinet of food storage containers, and the bag of paper recycling). It’s the most beading I’ve gotten done in AGES. I only like to bead in the daylight. After about 45 minutes she got intensely curious, so I opened an organizer of my chunkiest, most colorful plastic beads and situated her on my lap so that I could clearly see both tiny little hands and one tiny little mouth. I assumed she would immediately start having the little finger wiggling fits that she so effectively uses to spray bowls of cheerios or crackers all over the room, and start shoving things in her mouth and dropping them on the floor excitedly as she moved on to something else to look at. I was happy to let her have a look, but expected it to be like a bull ride – short, intense, hopefully with no injuries and back on the ground before I could blink.

But.

She was reverent. My wild child was slow, deliberate, cautious, and full of wonder.

She could barely contain her delight at the pretty things just beyond her fingertips, and kept peering at me with a quizzical “are you sure this is okay to do?” look, and then she would carefully pick one after much examination, tiny, long-fingered hands hovering over various compartments. She’d pick just one. Roll it around in her fingertips, palm it, uncurl her fingers and look, press it to her lips (which almost caused me to snatch it away immediately, but then I remembered that I do this, too), and then carefully place it back in the proper compartment, matching colors and styles and fingertips lingering to roll it around a little more while her eyes moved on to the next thing. She did this for about 50 beads, for half an hour, going through every single container (even SEED beads!) At one point she was holding a chunky, faceted, mustard yellow bead for longer than the rest and I said “is that one cool?”, and she immediately adopted the word for her favorites. In the next container, a white shell disc painted with a red lotus flower was declared “coooool” in a quiet, mystified toddler voice. Big, bright green wooden beads: “coooool”. Foiled turquoise glass: “cooooool”.

We did it again the next day.

Today I have to bring my beads back upstairs because we’re having a table full of people over for supper, but I suspect there will be much more bead-fondling in my gal’s future. Her Auntie Erin is proud.

I am left wondering if all this early exposure to non-pony beads means that the First Childhood Beading creations that I receive will be a little less horrendous than the plastic and gold-findinged concoctions that my mom dutifully wore (think gold earwires and stacks of small, faceted, plastic red white and blue beads – a brief stint with patriotism?)

But when I think about the beads I got to fondle as a kid, they are even more awesome. Remnants of the 70s – shell and huge chunky clay beads, millefiori, smoothed urchin spines, glass beads from deconstructed jewelry (my mom taught me the fine art of Buying Jewelry on Clearance Just To Cut Apart for the Beads), a campfire girls gown like this one, full of of beautiful cascades of wooden beads that I always wanted but could never have…

…and I still made ugly kistchy kid jewelry.

And I still love ugly kitschy kid jewelry. Auntie Erin will not be the one buying pony beads for Hazel, but I’m sure someone will, and I’ll wear them with pride.

Listening: Iris Dement
(Hazel is) Reading: Green Eggs & Ham
(I am) Reading: The Poisonwood Bible
Working on: laundry mountain