My life is disordered by children and mud. You can't have one without the other. Well, you can, but would you want to?

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There’s mud in my bed again.

Four-year-old and two-year-old have played happily in the garden in their usual roles of scientist and guinea-pig. This is a working compromise between the one who prefers his own company and the one who seeks brotherly attention at all costs. I could try to alter it, to referee a more equal division of fraternal rights, but who knows where fairness really lies between two very different personalities? The world gives extroverts all the rights, but I’m not convinced that’s how it should be. And even if I knew exactly what’s fair and could enforce it, a sense of entitlement might grow here in my garden instead of negotiation skills. I’d rather deal with mud in my bed.

Their outdoor experiments nearly always involve soil or snails, sticks or slime. Today the scientist has attempted to quantify how much of Planet Earth will fit inside the guinea-pig’s clothes. The guinea-pig has played along cheerfully until physical discomfort hit his threshold; then he has stumbled spillingly indoors, plopped into his mouth a pacifier, grabbed a certain ragged blanket and burrowed into a place he associates with comfort and contentment: his parents’ bed. I could forbid him, tell him to spoil his own bed instead, but love and toddlers’ bed-related emotions can prove fragile, and I’d rather deal with the mud in my bed.

Nice children play hygienically indoors with plastic toys and don’t get wet or dirty, bruised or cold or scratched. Even outdoors, they stay inside noisy rectangular spaces and use designated play equipment. But I have seen the statistics on sedentary living and child mental illness, and I would rather deal with mud and water trodden through my house.

A dozen or more years later I’m still dealing with more than my share of mud. My future scientist shuns the school bus and walks the two miles home each day across the fields—bringing home Essence of Farm in daily increments on his shoes and trousers. My future veterinary surgeon spends Saturdays volunteering with horses, and brings Aura of Stableyard home with him. But both carry more than their share of resilience and self-assurance, so I don’t complain much. There are harder things to deal with than dirt.

By Fiona M Jones

From: United Kingdom

Twitter: FiiJ20