There are two chicks peeping in our dining room. Before you laugh, let me point out that hamsters and parakeets typically reside indoors without raising eyebrows.  Our sweet Silkie and her chicks are equally deserving of warm shelter in late December. Come March they will be able to withstand the winds and rain of spring. But for now they peep during dinner and when we cannot resist them any longer... in our hands.  

My son has been well paid on several occasions to install speakers inside false rocks that play recordings of frogs and crickets in the back yards of wealthy clients. They decided that the ambiance of such garden creatures would add to their evenings on the deck and were willing to drop a few grand to get it. 

We get cheeping for the price of cracked corn. 

Each day we take the chicken family out for a jaunt and I get to witness innocence in action. 

"Go here Mom? Ok. Peck this? Sure. Hide under you? Yes mam."

When the outing is over mama snuggles down on the cold ground and invites them to dive under her belly. That is my queue to bring them back into the box of wood shavings and away from the purview of hawks that killed three of our flock this month. 

I too am a mother. But the limitations of my influence have been more apparent than show up with Pumpkin, Star and Oliver.  I made helpful suggestions about who to date and my kids were unimpressed. 

"Thanks but no thanks. I'll find my own social life, Mom."

The same is true of me. I did not always follow the ideas prescribed by my parents. They were not keen on my plan to attend an EST seminar in college. Neither did they take a gander at my choice to bike across Iowa. Alone. They did cluck contentedly when things with John looked permanent. 

But the window of opportunity for following is generous and God has significantly more patience than a skinny bird who sat for 800 hours on her eggs.