The Chickens Arrive Tomorrow
It's nearly two o'clock in the morning as I write this.
Tomorrow, our chickens arrive.
Or rather, today.
Their coop is standing in the garden, mostly assembled. There are still a few missing parts to sort out, but it feels ready enough to hold our excitement.
What surprised me most about this project wasn't the coop itself. It was who I built it with.
My daughter and I spent the evening together, following instructions, finding screws, solving problems, and laughing at the moments when neither of us could work out what the diagram was trying to tell us.
She stayed up far later than usual, completely absorbed in the task. Long after midnight, we were still working side by side.
As we worked, I found myself telling her stories from my own childhood.
I told her about the chickens I kept as a child. How we named them. How attached I became to them. How, during a flood, I rescued them and carried them to safety.
Those memories have been sitting quietly inside me for decades.
And suddenly they were alive again.
Not because I was remembering them.
Because I was sharing them.
Something shifted for me during those hours.
For a moment, I wasn't only a parent. I wasn't directing, organising or teaching. We were simply two people working together on a shared project, excited about the same thing.
Of course, I was still her mother.
But there was also a sense of companionship.
Partnership.
A glimpse of the person she is becoming.
I realised that one of the unexpected gifts of parenting is the opportunity to revisit parts of your own childhood through fresh eyes.
Not to return to childhood.
Not to relive it.
But to allow those old joys to find a new expression.
The child who once cared for chickens has grown into a woman helping her daughter prepare a home for chickens of her own.
The story continues, but with new characters.
Lately, I've been reflecting on trust, presence, and the question of whether life is enough without constantly striving for the next thing.
This evening felt like an answer.
The joy wasn't in completing the project perfectly.
The coop is not even finished.
The joy was in being there for it.
In the conversations.
The shared excitement.
The anticipation.
The feeling of creating something together.
Perhaps that is what so many childhood dreams are really about.
Not the chickens.
Not the treehouse.
Not the pony.
Not the adventure.
But the feeling of being fully alive and deeply present.
As adults, we often assume those experiences belong in the past.
Yet sometimes they return unexpectedly.
A packet of screws.
A half-built chicken coop.
A daughter sitting beside you past midnight.
And the realisation that some dreams don't disappear with age.
Sometimes they simply wait for the right moment to be shared.
Tomorrow the chickens arrive.
But looking back, I think the real gift has already arrived.
It came disguised as an ordinary evening, a flat-pack coop, and a chance to build something together.
🌿
Dr Maliheh Taheri
M.A.L.I. Neuro-Somatic Practice
Reflection
Parenting often feels like guiding a child towards the future. Yet sometimes it offers something else: an invitation to revisit parts of our own childhood and experience them again through new eyes. Not as a return to the past, but as a continuation of the story. 🐔🌿💛
