It’s the season of wistfulness, of light lingering past the children’s bedtimes, of wilting dandelions in jelly jars on my counter top and evening baths to wash away the fine silt of a day spent outdoors. It’s the season of things to come – summer is on the horizon.

This afternoon brought us our first bouquet of wishing flowers of the year. Alex brought one in to me while the baby napped and I followed him back outside to find Lila and Asher, each ready to blow.

What did you wish for? I asked Lila after she followed me back to the kitchen.

I’m not telling.

Oh, of course. Wouldn’t want it to not come true. I said, unloading the dishwasher. She sat at the table behind me and began working on a paper bag puppet. At her request, I drew the eyes and lips for her, balancing a stack of plastic bowls in one hand, the colored pencil in the other. You know, if it were me, I said, sliding the paper bag back over for her to finish with the hair, a nose, a dress, I would wish for you and your siblings to grow up happy and loving the Lord for the rest of your lives.

She gave me a look that said way to be a downer and mumbled, Oh, yeah. I would wish for that too.

I smiled and turned to the cupboards thinking, what does she want me to say? I would wish for cotton candy for dinner and a unicorn in my shed?

Then I glanced down at her small body at the table, at her paper puppet, with its huge head resting on the top of a very pointed, triangle shaped dress – bedazzled with buttons and swirls and rainbows of color.

And I thought, well, yeah. That IS probably what she wanted to hear from me. Not the boring or the obvious, but the wistful and whimsical, something that made me seem a little less like Mom, and a little more like a person.

At a Bible study yesterday morning, other women, other mothers and I discussed the balance between being heavenly minded but still “of earthly good.”

Could there have been a more perfect example, not even three hours later, and in my own kitchen? An entire yard full of God’s handiwork – green grass, bright yellow dandelions, older ones now soft and white and awaiting wishes from little lips, and my own wonderful children, spinning in hula hoops and scribbling with chalk, scuffing up their new spring shoes and making the most of every moment and breath of air they could wriggle and dance and laugh their little bodies through – almost as if they understood more than me, just how fleeting these days, these perfect afternoons, are.

So, asking myself again this morning: What do I wish for?

More days like these in this season of my life, more joy in every small moment, to have eyes wide open and a heart ready to embrace every good (silly, messy, exhausting, can’t-fit-it-into-my-schedule-but-I’ll-try-to) gift.

Oh, and she did finally tell me what her FIVE wishes were about yesterday. They were for her “marrying” prince: Alex.

But, why she can’t marry her brother, well that’s another conversation for another season.

Spring only comes once a year. Wish away, Baby Girl.