Jersey Boy(s)

The boys spent a bit of time on campus over the long holiday weekend. A walk around Mirror Lake and pizza at Adriaticos one night, followed by grilled donuts and gatorade and cousin time at tailgating the next day.  At one point Tollie looked up at us through the wire guard of his helmet and said This must be what heaven is like.

when they're not fighting

Using language to convey the magic of brotherly love might be like trying to use a wooden classroom ruler to measure the speed of light.

love, made tangible

When I was little, my mom used to say things like "We're having grilled cheese for lunch," as she served it with a side of tomato soup.
(of note: I once missed gymnastics, a beloved activity, because I sat at the table for hours, refusing to take even one bite of tomato soup. And yet I wonder where Tolliver gets his stubborn streak...)

These days Mom says things like, "Oh, you'd rather have peanut butter and jelly! Would you like that sandwich cut into stars or hearts?"

What I'm getting at here is that she tends to spoil the boys.
Case in point: her third quilt, this one for Charles Hanley.
Hank wraps up in it almost as snugly as he's wound himself around RoRo's finger.

one more

In addition to the normal chaos of five humans in the house, a chipmunk lived here over the weekend.

We've been in the habit of pulling open the large sliding door at breakfast, letting in cool air and listening to the birds out back. Sometimes we leave it open and go on about our day, until the humidity creeps up or until a cicada sneaks in.

The boys know that when our family says we, we always mean one more. There's always plenty of food to fill another dinner plate, always room in the car to give a friend a ride. We've had a few good conversations about it while gazing out that back door, the idea that being a friend is a force for good. We try not to exclude anyone from our resources of time and company, acknowledging that however exhausting it may be to spend time with a miserable person, it’s a lot more difficult to be that person.

Seemingly unrelated but ultimately connected and kind of hard to argue with: We have Cheerios! We can take care of him! I will make him a bed!!
I can handle an occasional catch and release katydid, but I'm not keen on cleaning up chipmunk poop.
The back door came with a screen, and it suddenly feels important to unearth it from the basement.

spending the day

Are you hearing that sound? he asks, excitement filling his voice. That's mine brothers home! 

Except it's only nine in the morning.

He follows a loose daily routine, one both time-consuming and challenging, but full of wonder and joy. His schedule includes certain basic tasks - drinking milk, testing the bedsprings, flailing madly on the floor and tinkling gently on the piano, climbing in and out of the stroller for practice, begging to watch Peppa Pig, dumping laundry baskets upside down. He scales the counter stools at least eight times a day, asking for something to eat - double eggs, peeny and jelly, cheese and grapes. He spends long stretches of time poring over a seemingly endless array of stickers, books, paper that he tears apart piece by piece. Together we paint with water colors, bat around a balloon with spoons, stack elephant blocks, race matchbox cars. And together we wait for for the school bell to ring, for the boys to come home.

working

The boys survived their first day of school.
To pass the time, aside from shooting nerf darts and reading books with Hank, I cleaned out the refrigerator and freezer, taking stock of what we need to use up and making notes about what we ought replenish. I live in a house full of boys who demand more food even as their mouths bulge with the most recent bite.

And then after school - to celebrate a good beginning - our family went out for dinner, something we don't do very often. But first, we helped at the local fresh produce pantry. The big boys bagged crisp green pears from an enormous cardboard box, while Hank hung over the side of the crate grabbing whatever he could reach, taking bites of fruit and tossing them aside like some kind of entitled raccoon.

Occasionally leaving a bag only half-filled, the boys became distracted by an empty potato sack, by the children at the playground next door, by an insect. But they made pleasant conversation with shoppers, and some important neural pathways might have been reinforced. The boys are wired to want to help. They understand that it is hard to concentrate when you're hungry - at school, at work, even when you're helping at the produce pantry.

The next day, the boys went back for day two and I found myself vacuming baseboards and dusting pictures, still killing time while Hank napped and the house was quiet. I wiped the glass in an aqua carved frame, admiring the photo of Celia by the back door. The print is black and white, but I remember the dress she had on, a yellow calico print. Her head is tilted sideways, as it often was.
I thought about what she might've been like as a sixth grader. The dust always comes back, but my daughter won't. So much unspent love gathered up in the corners of my eyes, a lump in my throat, that hollow part of my chest. Grief may be love with no place to go, but I'm working on giving it to her brothers, and showing them ways to give theirs to the world.

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