Mid week and the grass is already high even though we mowed less than five days ago but the trash is at the curb despite the fact that our trash can has officially “lost” both of its wheels.

It’s a race to departure day for our Beyond Wildwood adventure and the question looming of “Will I get all the tasks completed before we leave?” feels certain to be a resounding NO but I tidied up the front porch today (finally) and we are once again taking the majority of our meals together in its paint peeling glory and sunshine.

My baby started his first practice of team sports and it’s flag football and he needs a mouth guard and tonight – completely un-sport-related – that same “baby” lost his last front tooth and when I looked at a picture a stranger took of us all this morning I realized that there are no babies hanging out at my house because my last son turns eight this month and that’s a real long distance from diapers and pull ups and extra sets of clothing in the backseat just in case and nap schedules ruling our days.  He’s reading Roald Dahl and Piper is starting her first on-her-own attempt at a Narnia book and all of that makes me all kinds of happy because teaching reading was way harder than I thought it would be but I’m not sure my heart and my brain can keep up at the same pace as my children’s limbs are stretching and growing and now it’s London who pulls me aside and shares how cute her little brother is and a family friend told me this morning that he is having a hard time coping with the adolescence of my children via social media and if he thinks it’s hard to watch them grow older in the pictures, how on earth am I supposed to sleep and breathe this coming of age all around me?

My sentences are all Charles Dickens – they’re too long to read in one breath.  My heart is all Virginia Woolf – looking back and looking forward and feeling like both are out of reach and too slippery.  My life is more William Shakespeare – tragedy and comedy and history all morphed into one heavily-worded mess that only the playwright understands.

I think I’ll stop with the words and go heavy with the pictures.  Of this day – just this one day in the life of the people I know best and love best.  Beginning to end – not important particularly, not thorough or all-inclusive by any means.  Just the story as it unfolds in bits that was a very ordinary weekday.

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