It was the 4th of July and already hot by 10:30 in the morning, and my dad was outside my house digging weeds out of the front flower bed. My toddler was out there too, “helping” Grandpa. For almost four years I’d wanted to deal with the thistles and other junk growing between the shrubs and hostas, but between two pregnancies, being a mom to two little kids, and all the other household tasks demanding my attention, I just never carved out the mental space or physical time to do anything about the flower bed. When my dad presented his plan to pull the weeds then cover the area with weed mat and rocks, I let go of the guilt telling me I should be the one to do all the work and I let him take charge of the project.

I had just put the baby down for her morning nap when my dad texted me from outside. The message said, “Look what Grandpa and Walter found in the thorn bush.” It was accompanied by a picture of baby birds in a nest. I grabbed my camera and went outside.

The nest was hidden deep inside the thorny shrub, and my dad had to point it out to me before I could see it. He’d only found the nest while he was trimming the shrubs (a task he’d abandoned once he realized the bush was someone’s home.) Standing on the ground in my freshly-weeded flower bed I could just barely make out the nest, situated at about eye-level, and the occasional grey fuzz moving around inside it. I got a step ladder from the garage and set it next to the thorn bush so I could get a better look at the little birds. My dad warned me to watch out for the thorns; they were sharp enough that one had gotten through his work gloves.

Even from a better vantage point, it was hard to get a good look at the nest and its inhabitants. The little birds looked so fragile curled up together inside their nest. Their skin was almost translucent and barely covered by their fuzzy grey feathers. They squirmed around, nestling into each other. Occasionally one would lift its tiny head and open its beak, waiting for its mother to return with food. I carefully moved a couple branches aside and snapped a few quick pictures before I climbed down off the ladder to leave the birds in peace.

I’ve never liked those thorn bushes. I don’t like the thorns, and they’re not particularly interesting to look at. But that day I was happy they were there when the mother bird needed a safe place to hide her babies. I found it challenging enough to see the nest even when I knew where to look for it, and any predators who happened to find it would be deterred by the sharp thorns. Mama bird made a good choice when she picked that spot to build her nest.

The next day Walter curls up in my lap and snuggles into me, warm and wiggly and still a bit sleepy after his nap. He looks up at me and flaps his arms. “Cheep cheep!” he says. “Today we are birds.” Sometimes we’re cats or racoons, and once we were pelicans, but he’s decided that today we are a family of birds. He runs off, still flapping his pretend wings, to find a worm for “mommy bird.”

Who knows if he’s thinking about the nest outside, but that’s where my mind goes. When he comes back (with an imaginary worm in his mouth) I remind him about the nest and ask if he knows why the mommy bird made her nest in the thorn bush.

“Tell me,” he says.

“To keep her babies safe,” I say. “The branches are sturdy and the thorns protect the nest.”

He looks into my face with his big brown eyes, and it’s hard to know if he really understands what I’m telling him. He jumps up and flaps his arms again, flying away to look for more worms. I hear the baby waking up.

I sit on the living room couch with the baby while she nurses and my son bounces around the room, still pretending to be a little bird looking for worms. The window behind me looks out over the flower bed, now free of weeds. Bags of rocks lay in piles, waiting for my dad to spread them over the rest of the garden. The landscaping project is only halfway done and already it looks so much nicer out in front of the house. I’m excited to see the finished product, thorn bushes and all.

I think of the mother bird flying into them, again and again as she built her nest, twig by twig. How many trips did it take before her nest was ready? How did she manage to get through the tangled branches without being stuck by the thorns? She must still be making trips back and forth, in and out of the nest, through the thorns and back again so she can bring food to her babies. How could she do it?

Maybe she was small enough to fit between the branches, so the thorns didn’t touch her. Maybe her feathers protected her from being pricked. Or maybe mama bird felt the thorns but kept going anyway, willing to risk some discomfort to take care of her babies the best way she knew how, because that’s what parents do.