sources of joy

I woke up thinking it's laundry day. It has been laundry day here for twelve years now.

But the news turns my stomach and milestones mix with memories that make it hard to breathe and I nix any sort of domestic productivity.

We spend the day with our children instead of the washing machine, and I feel mostly delivered back to myself. The boys are, if nothing else, little valedictorians of being alive.

They are also super into comics and have read all the Garfield books at least twelve times. We toured the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library on campus, and the boys were enthralled.
Tucker draws his own special comics as cards for favorite people, challenging us to expand our definition of humor. Tolliver devours all the Calvin & Hobbes he can find and thinks he remembers that Beetle Bailey is one of Poppy's favorite strips. Meanwhile, Hank lasts for about three minutes before he tells us that his preference would be to play outside. He laughs at all of it though - the display mechanisms and the stairwell architecture and the small drops of condensation falling from the water fountain - reminding us that every single thing can be a source of joy.

I'll need to keep that in mind tomorrow when I wash clothes.