Good Today

I ask the boys the same question almost every day, over bowls of applesauce at the kitchen counter or aimed toward the backseat on the way home from another adventure: Where did you find good today?

On Sunday, Tolliver asked to sit with me in the sanctuary.  He spent the first part of the service stomping around between pews, almost-yelling But I promise to be quiet! while I buried my head in my River City Leather bag, half hiding crimson cheeks but mostly searching desperately for another lollipop.

I haven't figured out where God is when bad things happen, and I feel fairly certain he was not around when our faulty genes paired up, but I do recognize him in good.  And I want the boys to see all the good too.

Quite a few parishioners came up to me after church and said they enjoyed hearing Tollie's laughter.  And his footsteps.  And his "promises."  Even later Sunday evening, more people made it a point to mention how glad they were to have him at church, to have him doing church.

Several weeks ago the Presbyterian General Assembly voted to reword the church's definition of marriage to be between "two people."

And that's just it, why I get up and get us all dressed and go some Sundays, because it feels like church when everyone is included.

I read the query somewhere and reworded it just a bit, because I want to leave the boys plenty of space to find their own connections between God and good, but I ask them just the same.  I want them to be kind and to show love and to see good.  Or to make it.

In addition to visiting the metro park, we have visited the metro park

We've visited Battelle Darby Creek twice over the past several days, the first time with friends, the purpose to play and picnic and hike to see the bison.  The second time with nets and pails, the plan to show Andy how easy it was to catch the frogs and toads we discovered the first time.  The boys will probably wake up tomorrow morning and ask to go again.

photo credit to Mary

Going Fourth

We spent the past several days toggling between two types of celebrations, getting together with friends and family, adding our beach towels to the others spread out like patchwork around the neighborhood pool, later skipping the crowd and spending the evening gathered around our own backyard table.  Next day dipping our hands into communal coolers again, grabbing whatever random scooter was available to keep up with the kids down the block before heading back home for popsicles on the front porch.  Picnics at metro parks, donuts at goodie shops, early morning church services and afternoon naps, cousins and cookouts and too many treats balanced with the regularity of bedtime books and morning snuggles.

At one point I worried about whether Tucker was fitting in with new friends his age, watched him talk about addition facts and share the molted exoskeleton of a beetle while the other guys tried to explain the rules of First bounce fly, encouraging him to join their game.  

I painted my nails and made fresh basil pesto, skipped folding laundry and read a novel instead.  I struggled with limiting myself to one gooey strawberry bar, with letting the boys stay up really late, with seeing her in the sky, bright red.

Through all of it though, the big gatherings and the small family huddles, the rest and the hustle, the ungrounded fears and faint anxieties, flashes of thanks crackled at the edge of my heart and a ferocious tenderness burned in its center.  I think the feelings, all of them, add up to something very much, if not exactly, like hope.

I find myself with far more pictures than words

He is still one of the people I love best in the world.

Tolliver is fairly obstinate.  The fountains are too cold, the berry patch is too hot, the museum is too boring, the bathwater is too wet. 

About thirty seconds after I handed him his smoothie this afternoon I heard that sound the straw makes in the cup when you know it's empty.  He handed it back and, licking his lips, said That was yucky.

I just sent my mom a text to apologize for all the times I was outrageously ungrateful.

A Dozen

Andy tweeted this photo today, a picture of a picture taken a dozen years ago.  Twelve years, two houses, three children, one dog.  Thousands of photos, a few fights about nothing, hundreds of text messages, a million adventures.  Too many pots of coffee to count, and maybe not enough bottles of wine.  Tons of inside jokes and one really shitty funeral.  Some successes and some disappointments, lots of logisticizing and loads of laundry.  Plenty of front porch sitting sessions and falling asleep during movie scenarios, late night ice cream runs and rock-paper-scissors we're out of milk situations.  At least a dozen long lunches at Lindey's.  And lots and lots of love.

Today we veered toward the doing versus the getting done.

Peaches, pretzels, pieces of paper, the boys have been turning everything into hearts for me lately.  Tuck says, Hey Mom, look what I made for ya, while he shoves whatever new artifact he's shaped within inches of my eyes.  And Tolliver forms a heart with his fingers, the way Tucker taught him, and then makes it explode.  I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, but I do know I love them both way past crazy.