All Children, Except One, Grow Up

Occasionally in her travels through her children's minds Mrs. Darling found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most perplexing was the word Peter. She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here and there in John and Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be scrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than any of the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had an oddly cocky appearance.

"Yes, he is rather cocky," Wendy admitted with regret. Her mother had been questioning her.

"But who is he, my pet?""He is Peter Pan, you know, mother."

At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the fairies. There were odd stories about him, as that when children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened. She had believed in him at the time, but now that she was married and full of sense she quite doubted whether there was any such person.

"Besides," she said to Wendy, "he would be grown up by this time."

"Oh no, he isn't grown up," Wendy assured her confidently, "and he is just my size." She meant that he was her size in both mind and body; she didn't know how she knew, she just knew it. --Peter Pan by James M Barrie
What is it about a sleeping babe that makes you stand there and watch? It's rare that I can sneak in quiet enough without waking her. Even more rare that I can sneak back out, grab my camera and snap a few picts while she snoozes away. But I try every single day. And occasionally I'm rewarded and get to catch a glimpse of my little one frolicking far off in the lagoons of Never Land with fairies and mermaids.

I've mentioned before that I love, love, l-o-v-e this book and whenever I see Amaryllis like this (look at the clasped hands and dreamy smile in the first 2 pictures!), I picture her soaring with Peter & Tink on an awful big adventure.