Fairy Bug

Harper goes to school every morning now except for Fridays.  There was an option for her to go all week, and this probably would’ve been the smarter decision due to me trying to get my work done, but something about her being in school every day, even if it was just for part of the day, felt sad to me.  It would be the end of an era I think, and I suppose I need a few more months before that happens.  Before the three of us march off to Kindergarten, and second grade, and wherever it is I will be next.

So on Fridays Harper and I keep each other company. Last Friday she and and I had lunch with Bear.

She’s telling me about her favorite branch in this picture.  Each morning when she sits down for breakfast she makes sure her favorite branch is still there. (We live on the top floor of a condominium and one of the rooms of our home is surrounded by windows allowing plenty of opportunity to watch the squirrels prance and soar on the trees and look for branches we love.)

Harper’s never told us why this particular branch is her favorite, but she knows exactly where it is.  Last Friday she said, “You want to know why that’s my favorite branch?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Because it’s in the shape of a Y and that’s the last letter in Hadley’s name.”

They get a long, those two.  When they’re not fighting.

Harper and I continued to talk while eating our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and I wondered what it was that’s comforting about a PB and J on a Friday afternoon, until a very strange bug landed on our screen window.  We had to take a look at it.

We had to show Bear.

Its wings were translucent and shot tiny prisms on our window. The day was pleasingly cool and breezy and when its wings moved it they shimmered in the sunlight.

“Mommy,” Harper whispered, “This must be a fairy bug!”

I told her I thought she was right and for the rest of our lunch we whispered about the fairy bug.  Harper believed that it came to protect the fairies that must be in the trees waiting for Hadley’s loose tooth to fall out.  “It’s a protector fairy bug,” she said.

I watched the fairy bug’s wings and wondered again if I did the right thing keeping Harper home on Fridays.  I suppose I’ll never know, though I don’t think I’d be wondering about the fairy bug, either.