Buried Treasure of a Literal and Metaphorical Kind

(Pictures to come soon)
One of the great joys of being a parent is watching our kids grow up and become their own person. We revel in their new developments. If you read any of the blogs written by parents of younger children, you will see that. There is a wonderful video of a cute girl nearly ready to walk. There is an account of the first words another sweetie is beginning to learn to utter. The joys you find when you are raising teenagers is quite different. In an amongst the angst, the bad moods caused by lack of sleep and/or eating poorly, are glimmers of the wonderful person you see forming before you. Those glimmers give you a window into what has been significant to them in their young lives.

I got such a wonderful glimmer, this time an extended one, earlier this week. And I'll tell you, it warms my heart! The school my kids go to is very different from a traditional school. It is a k-12 setting where the kids of all ages have a chance to mingle and interact. When Ethan was younger he would take delight when the older, cool kids took time to create some fun activity for them. Often it would involve some sort of finding of a treasure or winning a contest. My son, the lover of digging and orchestrating people, put together a treasure hunt for the little kids and he made it worth their while. He placed six dollars worth of coins in a really neat, old cigar box. He then sealed it with wax, tied it with ribbon and sealed that, complete with an ornamental bit of glass. This was then secretly buried in the sandbox in the school yard. The pit was about 3'or 4' deep. He gathered the kids who wanted to take part, encouraged them to work in team and gave them a set of hints. Most kids worked at it from time to time. Others devised a strategy for their attack. He rewarded the hardest, most diligent workers with more refined hints. In the end there were just a few who persisted. They worked well, figuring out who would dig when, how they would split the booty. It was pretty impressive. One of the little girls had even dug wholes right next to where the treasure was hidden. Finally, Ethan gave her a much stronger hint. You can imagine how excited they were when she hit the bricks that covered the box of treasure. You can imagine his sense of joy and satisfaction when he got to witness their success. Even those who did not find the box had a grand time. Ethan had spent the day outside, making sure that it was safe and fun. I love the fact that he would, of his own accord, spend his energy and thoughts on such an endeavor. Perhaps this act of kindness that he has shared with these little kids will be played forward by them in the future. I love that he has this kind of action in him. While he created a treasure for them, he also found one within himself.