miniature stuff
Originally uploaded by laundrylessons

It is an odd thing to stick on a bulletin board, this tiny, baby pinecone. It came through the laundry one day, and while pulling it out of the dryer I was struck by its cuteness, and couldn’t throw it away. The perfection in this small prickly seed is mesmerizing. Now it nestles under the grosgrain ribbon on my board.

I like miniature stuff. Small is cute, like kittens and baby socks. If not cute then little stuff is funny, like the inside of your ear or the miniature bananas I brought the kids from Whole Foods. And at this time of year I love to put out a bowl of the miniaturized, mini candy bars. My Snicker’s bar has gone from mini, to bite sized. A few are good, too many and my pants don’t button. That’s not funny or cute.

Merritt had her annual exam last week. She is miniature. My six year old weighs a whopping 22.4 pounds. The pumpkin, sitting like a sentry on the front porch, is bigger than her. The neurologist isn’t concerned because she says Merritt’s energy is going other places. She is healthy, well in a sick, degenerative disease, healthy way. She doesn’t get colds and has never been hospitalized, so I accept her diminutive stature as normal, for her.

And like the pinecone, there is a sort of perfection in her smallness that draws me in. Babies have this quality. I call Merritt my perma-baby. She wears tiny socks and shirts with silky appliquéd bows. She doesn’t wear clunky Dora the Explorer tennis shoes to ride a bike or stomp on the acorns falling off the neighbor’s tree. Because her hair is still baby-soft I can put a mini ponytail on top of her head, the kind that looks like a fountain.

On my walk yesterday I saw a whole tree filled with the mini pinecones. The boughs at the top drooped where the clusters of the little seeds seemed to gather by the hundreds. The power one cone has to grow a huge tree didn’t escape me as I picked a handful off the sidewalk and then let them slip out of my hand. Little things do have power, sometimes we just overlook it.

Visit my ebay listing this week…it’s kind of funny…called…I smell like a mom.