Second Church Steps

Butterfly Days The Children's Circle Preschool year end rituals are among the things that I have missed the most in these difficult days of sheltering at home.   One of my favorites involves butterflies and waiting.   Classrooms of children watch for butterflies to open –in their classroom!   It is a momentous occasion.   We pray with the teachers that the butterflies will emerge.   We watch and wait with the impatient children.   The children learn words of waiting, hope, and anticipation to go with those feelings. The butterfly is also a metaphor for the impending end of the school year, when the children will go forth to new places, new people, and new experiences…taking their early learning and stories of becoming with them. Then, it struck me that these are butterfly days , and how we talk about them with and NEAR our children matters. Words matter, and stories are memory forming. Parents, we are all aware, acutely aware, of the difficulties of these days. N