Seeing Rainbows

Rugrat's new favorite thing to do each day is water our trees. She will get her shoes on faster than I can slip my feet into my flipflops if we are going to water the trees.

The hose at our back gate is the longest one and has a handle on it with a "shower" feature so we always use it. What that means is that Rugrat grabs the end of  the hose and starts walking to the front yard where the trees are while I unroll the hose. For some reason, it always tangles up and causes a problem if I just try to walk it to the front and pull. So we have our system down.

Once she gets it to the first tree, Rugrat drops the hose and comes running back. That's when I turn on the water.

The first day we did this, she noticed the rainbow. Commenting on it, she reached out to touch it. That didn't work out so well. She just got soaked (although she didn't really mind too much).

Every day, I tell her you can't touch rainbows -- you can just see them. That doesn't stop her from trying though. She has slowly circled the tree getting watered and attempted it from different angles. But it stays just out of her reach.

I love seeing her mind at work trying to figure out this problem. I see her depth of understanding and logic in action. I knew she was smart already. It's a different thing though to watch her work through a problem.

She has finally accepted my assertion that you can see rainbows but you can't touch them. She tested it for herself. And now she tells me very matter-of-factly. I hope she continues to do that. I don't want her to blindly accept what others tell her - even me. I expect her obedience while she is young but I want her faith, politics, education, etc. to be her own. Tested and taken in, made a part of who she is.

And if she wants to get wet now, she'll just have to admit that it's because it's fun.