HomeLife
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard
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when I misjudged his intentions.
“Momma, where are you?” The question of the day. It’s the six year old walking grin asking this time. When he can’t hear my answer, he asks it louder. And continues to ask. And I finally shout from my location – the bathroom – “Son, I am in the bathroom!” We are all changing from our swimsuits into our dry clothes and he keeps asking, “Mommy – where are you?” He can’t hear me. I say it again. And again. Louder. Not in a super kind mom voice. You know the one I mean? And then – this six year old gentleman finds me. “Hey, Mommy,” he says through the…
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Texas ya’ll.
Texas is hot. It’s also in a different time zone. (But of course everyone knows that – right?) And it’s home to one of my favorite families and my favorite Emma. We have eight kids all together here and we are enjoying the high volume chattering and the endless snack consumption and the book reading and good times. We’ve been using incentives to encourage them to clean up – like offering them tokens that they can later exchange to buy popcorn with toppings for movie night. The boys ended their baseball seasons this weekend and we were able to watch a couple of games and see Colton wear his official…
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here I am, son.
They sit on me. Lean against me. Wiggling. Twitching. Tapping. Head lolled against my shoulder. My boys. Some days I am struck by their vastly increased hands-on neediness. My sons are much touchier than my girls. They need me differently. Some days (all days) I am convinced that my ten year old would literally crawl into my skin and take up permanent residence if he was given the option. A steady question on his lips – “Where are you? What are you doing? Will you be here when I come back?” Listen to me, son. I’ll be here. Lean your head back on my shoulder. I’m not going anywhere.
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the second day in june.
Well. We remembered that it was trash day during daylight hours. We accidentally locked the dog inside the house and I had to drive in reverse on the driveway to set him free. We took turns holding Maddox. We had a fabulous Book Club at our favorite local pizza place. (You guys. Start a Book Club. It’s so great. Really special times with your kiddos. Rare and sweet.) I don’t know what else – I mean, at one point it rained. Mosely was bitten by a fire ant. Piper has a new loose tooth. The mint cookies and cream ice cream at dinner was stinkin’ delicious. No one wanted to…
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says London Eli Scout
“If I married a potato chip, my potato chip husband wouldn’t last very long. Neither would our potato chip children.”
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Friday’s Movement.
The front door crashed open before breakfast was even on the table. “Mom. Mom. Mom,” Mosely was rushing to my side, breathless. “Prince Caspian won’t get up. He can’t stand up.” And it was Friday. And the day was tilting. I ran out to the goat’s pen and surveyed the situation. It didn’t look good. Poor little Caspian was suffering for sure. I called my kind vet tech in training and asked her advice. I messaged the helpful seller of the goats. Then I called our vet and made an immediate appointment. The kids and I all piled in the car, Mosely carefully holding Caspian in a red blanket on…
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overheard truth
And the sister said, “Do you know what we have during this sad time?” The other one asked, “What? What do we have?” “One another.”
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doing the best I can
And I want to gather them all to me, like little chicks in a nest, and pull them close and look into their eyes and whisper, “You guys. You guys. Mommy is doing the best she can.” Isn’t that what all we mommas want to say? We’re doing the best we can. And we know, my goodness we know, that the best we can offer is sometimes just not enough. Just. Not. Enough. The biting truth is – even when this was a two-parent house – the best we could do was not really enough then either. The darkest and scariest and most freeing truth I know as a parent…
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too much knowledge.
Maybe this kid knows too much. At bedtime – of course at bedtime, it’s always at bedtime – Bergen Hawkeye comes shooting down the stairs. (You can never say that boy walks down the stairs. He just doesn’t.) He sails into the living room and exhales. “Mom!” he has that look in his eyes. “There’s a cockroach in the girls’ room!” Ugh – gross. A cockroach! What in the world. “Son,” I give him a certain look in my own eyes. “Go kill it. Just kill it please.” “Mom,” he grins. “That might be hard. It takes six pounds of pressure exerted on a cockroach to kill him.”
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Meeting Maddox
I woke Saturday morning and glanced at my phone. Like 14 missed calls and 13 texts and oops – I guess I should have stayed awake all night or something. Riley – our oldest daughter – was letting me know she was on the way to the hospital to give birth to her baby. Yes. To give birth to a baby! (It’s shocking to think of myself as a grandmother so I plan to do my best to make this post about Riley and not about how I cannot possibly be grandmother age.) We arrived at the hospital literally as she was delivering the little fellow so our timing was…
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a funny story because we need a little funny, am I right?
Who needs something funny today? Okay – I need something funny. Here. A funny blog post. _____ Last weekend I did something out of the ordinary. Something kind of crazy. Something I haven’t done in a very long time. I went to the ……. mall! I know. I know. It is completely out of character for me. But I needed a (ugh and sigh) bathing suit and I wanted to try on the ones offered at the Land’s End section in Sears. My friend Hilary went with me. (Actually – we had a great time together. We got trapped in that violently bright, over cluttered, monstrosity that is labeled “Forever…
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for all the days you feel like this
There was this morning that I spent pretty much entirely in bed. My friend delivered gallons of farm fresh milk and Otto dropped an egg on the floor and I stood in the kitchen with counters crowded with bowls for yogurt and granola that hadn’t yet happened and I cried and she said, “Can I take your kids to play with mine for the day?” and I nodded. “Thank you,” I hope I said. Maybe I forgot to say that. I’ve said it before. I will say it again. Life is hard ya’ll. Being a human is just plain hard work. And she left with my bouncing-off-the-walls-with-enthusiasm children and I…
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Hawkeye Thoughts
His feet are filthy. As in, gross dirty. Those weird little lines of crud that only a pair of Keens can outline so distinctly. Those ragged little beasts are currently snuggled up against mine as I lie in bed tip tap typing away. I should move my feet before my size eights are contaminated by his size fives, but I don’t actually care all that much. His eyelashes are longer than mine on even a good blinc mascara morning. This boy is sensitive and funny and quick witted and changing even as I write this post. Bergen still loves affection. He’s a cuddler. A hand holder. A back scratcher. He…
