what a weekend

The long weekend began with Friday night Bobcat football and led into a Buckeye game, after which we squeezed in time with friends along the Ohio River before ending things at Buckeye Lake, driving home late Monday night with a homemade root beer float.

After tailgate Saturday we headed south to a little riverfront plot where kindness congregates. RiverFam gathers regularly in Grandview but there's something special about being away, on the water. Grownups moved effortlessly between kid duties and meal prep, from heavy conversation to silly jokes, pausing more than once to note how happy we were to be together. In addition to boat rides and the annual talent show, we harvested paw paws and Hank had his first water ski lesson!

Time in the car meant more Ted Lasso and after a few episodes Hank asked what "wanker" meant. Tuck explained in mere seconds, with a fairly accurate (fairly graphic) hand gesture. No one batted an eye. We've been trying, for years, to make the whole puberty ride feel ordinary and transparent, and this gave me faith in at least some moderate success.

The boys all genuinely enjoy words, fascinated by the sorcery of a well-chosen one. Of course there is nuance and etiquette, cursing as both a small way to try on power but also impolite or offensive to some. Our house doesn't sound like a convention of dumpster-mouthed sailors, but the boys are free to say what they think and feel. 

Speaking of uncensored, Hank is reading the Hunger Game series and plans to watch the movies. I don't read aloud often, so miss that chance to talk about vocabulary. Instead of reading picture books or singing lullabies, I find myself mostly buying more tortilla chips and bleaching white socks. But what I had not anticipated was how much my children would fill the house with words and music - a boy on the third or fourth round of saying the exact same thing only louder, trying on foul language or singing in the shower, the regularity of tunes picked out on the guitar. There are also times when all I get is a three syllable response equivalent to the shrug emoji. I'm here for it, offering the gift of listening, an always audience.

This weekend also brought doubly good audition news for Tucker, cast in the GHHS fall play, Radium Girls, and selected for OMEA's All State Choir. We are proud and thrilled and aiming to say so carefully, without putting an enormous premium on his potential. He loves being on stage, and we love seeing him there. And that's enough.

After a lovely, full weekend we are basking in the deep luck that makes us feel like it's all divine. And looking, always, to spend more time with friends or with Ted Lasso, for an opportunity to hang with family or hit the next RBF *

(root beer float)

so many hot, happy days

None of us are quite ready to lean away from summer. 

5th / 8th / 11th

Dear boys,

I watched the three of you walk down Glendale early this morning, like burros under your backpacks. While you headed toward another first day I wished I could read you to sleep and sing you awake forever. I know not every single dream comes true. 

This was the summer we put pimento cheese on chicken sandwiches on repeat, the summer we saw Canadian lakes the rarest, most perfect shades of blue, where, as humans, it felt as though we were merely hovering close to earth. This was another summer spent at ballfields and in swimming pools, another season when you could retreat from it all by reading a book. Or playing a musical instrument (piano, guitar, harp, saxophone, trumpet, drums, you name it). At home, some days felt akin to living in a spacious, well-decorated junkyard, with friendly, starving dogs. But this was also the summer that one of the things keeping me most from despair was the sound of your spoons against a cereal bowl, all that clinking, a kitchen full of healthy kids. 

As you embrace a new school year, remember that feeling uncertain is endurable, that you are designed to be resilient. That you can play neat tricks in your own mind, that you are well equipped for growth, to tackle the unseen and assume brilliance. You are all three so capable of being good company, inclined to create more than you consume, to convert the dross to gold. May your freshly structured days be filled with frequent small delights.

Go be students! Connect with others and care about ideas and wonder at all the not-boring things in the world! No one at school will be be collecting data on your heart, the secret chambers in which the most important things in your life will likely occur, but pay attention to the way it beats and notice what makes you feel twice as alive. For me, it's being your mom. I can't get enough of you, and I don't need a thing from you. 

a whirlWIND

In an effort to embrace experiences that add interest if not positive outcomes, we decided to drive to Chicago for two days. We needed to return Hank's rental harp, and rather than ship it back we used the deposit refund to pay for gas and a hotel room. It felt a little crazy to try to cram so much in, but somehow it all worked out.
All five floors of the Lyon & Healy factory were fascinating!
The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field!
Northwestern University's campus is gorgeous!
And, what truly elevated the trip were the Ted Lasso DVDs we borrowed from the library. The boys made it through Seasons 1 and 2 and are entirely invested.