I happened to see a grasshopper leap over an entire picnic table. If I were to make the equivalent jump, I’d launch myself over the pavilion. Grasshopper power, as the Wild Kratts would say.
Later that day, I sat in the doctor’s waiting room. A smiling nurse opened the door and called, “I’m looking for a two-year-old!” Just three chairs down from me, a mother slid a child from her lap to the floor. This kid, however, immediately climbed back into her lap.
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The nurse chuckled. “I think I found her.” The child buried her head in her mother’s chest. Nurse continued, “I’ve got something to tell you.”
She crossed the room with long strides. She crouched beside the mother and began to whisper to the child. Her little face slowly turned toward the nurse. Suddenly, she leaped down to the floor!
“Good girl!” The nurse smiled. “Let’s go on back.”
Nurse power, I thought. And now, as I’m writing, I think about that little girl’s power. It’s a mighty jump from your mom’s lap into the unknown.
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of Little Big Moments, a collection of mini-essays about parenting, and Tigers, Mice & Strawberries: Poems. Both titles are available most anywhere books are sold online. Taylor-Troutman lives in Chapel Hill where he serves as pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church and occasionally stumbles upon the wondrous while in search of his next cup of coffee.