Ordinary Mornings

Waking up to a house tidied up by an almost teenager who finds herself in hot water more and more often. Her guilt works to my advantage.

Arlo, awoken by a baby sister who loves him as deeply as she torments him. 

Babies standing at the window, watching their older siblings play in the early morning hours. 

Oma's deck with a glaring pink power wheels and a cousin they all adore.

Fighting for toys that are hardly that. 

A walk to the coffee shop for iced drinks and giant eclairs.

Slow and loud and finally sunny. 

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Memory Keeping: Yard Mud

Sure, the yard is more mud than grass or even weeds. And the kids aren't smiling. And Alamae still has the remnants of a black eye. 

We aren't that impressed with perfect around here.

Those mud crusted blue jeans are still on my porch, one week later,  waiting to be washed and dried.

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Memory Keeping: The Coldest Days

The cold was bracing, a cruel winter's joke, but how to refuse those dark, serious eyes.

He counted "one, two" over and over, carefully walking up and down the brick steps.

He hid behind bushes, crunched through dried leaves.

He examined his hands, one covered in a mitten, the other housed in an old sock.

I begged to go inside. His simple "no" rang with joy.

He looked in amazement as his shoes imprinted the scant snow with patterns from his rubber soles.

"Come here, mommy," he instructed as though these corners of our yard had never been explored.

* My plan is to start a new "series"--simple snippets of moments I want to remember without pretending that there is no bigger or broader implication. 

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