The Backyard Through a Granddaughter’s Eyes and Ears

                Our six –month-old granddaughter recently came with her mom as surprise guest to her aunt’s birthday dinner.  This tiny ranch girl is used to looking at cows and has already met her future 4-H pig project up close and personal, as in nose to nose, so she’s used to the out of doors.  However, she hasn’t spent much time with this grandma outdoors so we worked on that.

 We had a good rain recently, so to avoid feeding Miss G to the skeeters,  we spent the morning on the screened in porch.  Our back yard is a symphony of birdsong, so it was fun to watch this little dolly tilting her head, looking for the origin of all those noisy birds.  A cardinal sang his heart out to her with his “pretty bird” call, and some little wrens chittered away on the hill above us. 

 Not far in the distance, we heard a pheasant crow, while our resident red tail hawks flew overhead “screeing” away.  Some noisy sparrows sparred over something in tree not far from us, entrancing the baby with their New York City side walk babble

 If that weren’t enough sensory stimulation for one so young, a good breeze rustled the cottonwood  leaves as a backbeat to the songs all the birds were singing.  To go with the dancing, noisy leaves, butterflies fluttered in close enough so our baby could see them flitting from blossom to blossom on the old-fashioned roses and the Black-eyed Susan.  She liked those too and waved and kicked her appreciation.  We had white ones and yellow ones, but no big orange ones.  Maybe those will come later in the summer.

Since it is difficult to get inside an infant’s mind, I worked on reading body language.  After the initial going someplace different at Grandma’s house so I have to look all over the place, Miss G relaxed in my arms and spent her time either trying to identify where those noisy birds were hiding , or she had her little eyes and hands dancing in time with the butterflies.

 The breeze was just right and worked like a sedative until her lids grew heavy and slowly closed.  By the end of our time outdoors, she was sound asleep in Grandma’s arms.  I like to think she was dreaming about butterfly kisses.