Moth Season

The moth population in Colorado is three times that of last year (per Aden). They flutter around the windows trying desperately to get back outside, leading me to wonder why on earth they came into the house in the first place. At night the sound of their fluttering wings surrounds each light and keeps the kids and the guinea pig on edge. It's interesting to watch the different reactions of my children to the influx of fluttery grey insects; Aden carefully catches them with stiff paper and a cup and then releases them outside while Daniel recoils in fear and demands that they be summarily executed. Sometimes I free them and sometimes I dispense with them - it depends on my mood.

This morning, Aden spent an hour trying to revive a beautiful black and yellow butterfly which is either injured, undernourished or truly confused. I love her caregiving tendencies and feel grateful for her compassion toward living creatures, even if it does not always extend to her brothers (that's only a reassuring symptom of her being a normal child). I enjoy watching all of the children grow and change as time goes by, a process which I (the swim geek) sometimes mark by swimming results. Aden just dropped eleven seconds in her hundred breaststroke, an event which she swam last year. That's incredible! William and Daniel are also swimming best times and looking so different year over year. It's a dizzying privilege to see them change on both the inside and outside.

We only have two weeks and two swim meets left in the regular portion of the season - a short time even on the short scale of our usual seasons. Then, like the moth population, our swim season will come to a close. Just another part of the cycle of things - neither moth nor butterfly nor childhood swimming can last forever.