The heart of a child

_{*written 11/20/2013}

What are little boys made of? What are little boys made of? Snips and snails and puppy-dogs' tails, that's what little boys are made of. What are little girls made of? What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and everything nice.

As life would have it, for the time being I am sharing a household with 2 little boys, 7 and 1 years young. The 7 year old is bright and smiley and playful and intelligent and vocalizes his belief in magic. I took him outside one night to show him the full moon and he exclaimed "it IS a full moon tonight! That means the wolfs are gonna jump into it. Imagine if we can see them!!!" When he spoke, he made a statement. There was no air of wordplay as often occurs with adults, the pure belief he held in his heart dripped from every word and shined like a million candles radiating from his eyes. He begins a lot of his sentences with "Imagine if..." Needless to say he has swiftly stolen my heart. On Halloween he couldn't wait to get home from trick or treating. So that he could GIVE candy out. It's his favorite part of the holiday and when the candy ran out, he yelled for his mom demanding she bring him his candy that he had just received to give that out.

The 1 year old is just as bright and smiley and intelligent but he doesn't speak just yet. At least not with words. His body, expressions and vocalizations are his words as is with all beings, it's just more pronounced as there are no words to convolute what he's saying. His reaction to the candles on my birthday cake was the best gift I could have received. A little Leo who turns the gas on the stove every time he enters the kitchen, I've nicknamed him fire baby and he has the temperament to match. Upon seeing the blazing flames atop my cake, he began screaming "Oooohhh oooohhh!" And wiggled and writhed out of the arms holding him to stumble over and climb onto my lap. We attempted to blow them out and make a wish together but he was mesmerized by the flame. After I successfully wished for my hearts desire, he reached out to touch them. I picked one up and put it to his mouth thinking he wanted to taste. Nope. He wanted to touch where the fire had been and looked at the charred wick in awe.

Living with them has been a beautiful experience and forces me to time travel back into my own childhood. Which is frustrating. I hear people speak of vivid memories and my own are so few and far from vivid. And if I attempt to explore the concept of magic and belief, my memories consist solely of disbelief. My first friend was a girl named Alice. Her mom and mine met in a park when I was around a year old. Growing up, Alice always wanted to play pretend and I never understood it. I remember her getting mad at me because I couldn't see the horse she was pretending to ride. And I remember begging with my Mom to be honest with me about Santa because it just didn't make sense that he could visit that many houses in one night and get into them all and carry all those gifts. Whereas Alice, believed he was real long after most because one Christmas when her parents were broke Santa brought some really expensive toy she had been wanting.

I can't pinpoint it. I wish I could. While writing this I asked my mom if I had always been a skeptical child or was there a time when I believed and apparently yes at one time I believed in bath tub magic where magical cups would go from being empty to revealing animals. But that seems to be the extent of it.

The weird part is that looking back, and having a better understanding of manifesting as an adult, I was a machine as a child. Anything I wanted would appear as if by magic. I'd either find it or someone would give it to me without me even saying I wanted it. I saw orbs of light around me all the time and though I don't remember their name, there was a being I played with even though I was an only child until 5. Hell I even believe I manifested my own sister. To this day my mom calls her MY star baby. I do actually vividly remember the night I wished on a star for her. And maybe that's it. Maybe that's my answer, when I became afraid of my own power. In the words of my 7 year old friend, imagine if, I manifested a real living breathing person?! What if my belief and desire were so strong that in some realm the fairies heard my heart and sprinkled their dust around my parents causing them to conceive a child? It can't be disproven, so it could be true. See but, she was born with heart problems. And if I were indeed responsible for her creation, thinking and desiring her into existence, then I would be responsible for her health or lack thereof. Yep, I'm diving deep. No other way to do it. Maybe that's it. I don't know.

What I do know, is that somehow in the last 3 years, magic has found it's way back into my life. I've passively played with it from time to time but somewhere lurking deep within my subconscious there has been a fear. It's mirrored itself all around me in various beings and its time that I'm honest with myself. I don't know how exactly but it's time I relight the magic that exists in my child's heart so I can once again consciously create my world.