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.

so many ingredients

Three is so full of wonder and why and wow and whoops...

On the back patio, just looking around: Why do birds be barefoot forever? 

Drawing at the kitchen counter: An X upside down is still the same letter! 

Baking blueberry muffins for a neighbor who's health is tenuous, talking about adding love and hope to the batter: But how do you make love? Does it have so many ingredients? 

A plastic snake wrapped snugly around his forearm: Mom look, I have a beautiful wrister! I mean bracelet! 

Fixing himself a snack: I need celery and peanut butter and raisins and a knife, please. For ants on a bench.

lately, still mostly summering

in the tree tops

The big boys had a brother camp out in the treehouse, complete with late night hike through the dark woods, s'mores and lightning bugs, plus an early morning bike ride to have breakfast at a favorite local diner.

narrator : Hank Betz

It used to be that I narrated his days.

These are eggs. They are fragile. That yellow part is the yolk. It is bursting!
Careful, the stove is hot.

Let's put shoes on, right foot, left.
Those are flowers. Take a whiff! They touched your nose!

See the spider web? Oh, you found a puddle. You're going to need a bath.

Through the door.
The water is warm. That is a circle. This is a zipper.

Time for a rest.
Please don't touch the trash. Let's read a book. Would you like milk?

That is a zebra, that is a skyscraper, that is a bulldozer, there is the moon.

Now, Hank talks. Incessantly. Non-stop narration.

His words are gentle and fascinating. He says, without saying, take my hand, let me tell you about the universe. Also let me tell you about this toy and that small scrap of string and do you hear that noise and what is your favorite color, but white is not in the rainbow. And may I please have another snack and I need to pee and where are we going today, I like to go to the pool, I can do a giant cannonball and I can wear the goggles Lucy gave me and we can take cherries for a snack and did you buy more cherries at the grocery because we ate them all yesterday and I want to make a fruit hat, I do not want to take a rest.

These are my nerves. They are fragile.
This is my heart. It is bursting.

fair

Such a small word for a big day!

preserve

We'd never taken the boys to Yellow Springs, so spent a day exploring Glen Helen recently.
We arrived at the raptor rehabilitation center just as the birds were being fed lunch - tiny turkeys and rats and venison. We walked along limestone cliffs and looked at waterfalls, the boys calling from ahead for us to notice something, never hanging around to see if we had. We marveled at cathedrals of green, all the gauzy layers of moss and leaves, sunlight dappling. The boys found crawdads and salamanders along the creek edge, and were fascinated by Hopewell mounds and rock formations, and I tried to ignore all the dirt, tried to take in the complex web of growth, green and human.