Holy Work

I apologized to Andy when he got home from work.  His dinner was not ready, and the house was littered with contraption set parts and puppet show pieces.  Dice on the dining room table and paratroopers dangling from the balcony.  Wet towels over the railing, plates piled in the sink.  We left everything as it was when we decided to play outside.  Andy stepped over the boys where they were digging for grubs, surveyed the bicycles and squirt guns, the basketballs and scattered sidewalk chalk, smiled and gave me a kiss.  No big deal.

Tollie often says to me We're hard working in here. You need get out, please.
I'm hard working in here too, bud.

My energy runs out, but the boys run on.  The sheets are clean, but we have to make the bed before we can get in it.  I fall onto the mattress with tingly fingers, head spinning, delirious -- not drunk, but exhausted.  The house is a disaster.  I apologize for the inconvenience, but Andy knows as well as I do, the boys are hard working in here, readying themselves to change the world.  They make a million messes, but they also give us, on the daily, innumerable reasons to be optimistic.