Growing Children and Birds

The eggs in the nest on my porch hatched. I can see little heads popping up. One week later and the heads alone are as big as the eggs were. How could they have been inside those little eggs? How could they have grown so fast? Heads like that make me think of Kelly’s head when she was born. The midwives got out the tape measure. They said it was unusually large. I said, “You don’t have to tell me!”

Every day I take pictures of the birds. I have a stepstool out there so I can get a better look. They are about as big as the mother but they are scrawny. Already they are standing up and flapping their wings, wobbling on the edge. They are living on the edge. I’m always afraid, sitting there in my rocking chair watching, that one of them is going to fall off.

There’s no room left in the nest for the mother. Last night she didn’t come home. I imagine there was no getting any sleep in that crowded crib and so she shacked up somewhere else—the Catawba tree perhaps. Or maybe the cherry trees. In the morning, she was back. The four babies had their mouths wide open. Shovel it in! Shovel it in! There must be some good worms around here the way they are growing in leaps and bounds.


It is a good place for growing children and birds. Yesterday Kelly climbed up on the ladder and picked cherries. Cherries just like the kind you get in the store. They grow right here on our very own trees. You just go out there and get them. I watched from the porch as Kelly reached over and grabbed a branch. She dropped the cherries into a bowl and the ladder wobbled. I almost jumped up. “Be careful!” I called. She was right on the edge. Just like the birds.