Football

Photo credit: Urban Rose.

"Mom, I don't know if you feel the same way about football as I do," Jane quips from the back seat.

"Yeah?" I say.

"I mean, I like the idea of football, but I sort of get tired of watching the same thing over and over," she says.

I laugh, signal right, and ease into the far lane.

Photo credit: Urban Rose.

"I would kind of rather just get and update every time they score a point," she says.

"I know just what you mean," I say. Blue reflections of sky spread across the road, I whiz through a puddle. It sprays the front windshield.

"Dad's like, you have to see this great play," she says. "And I'm sort of like, hmm."

I nod, a giggle laced through my thoughts. Another right hand turn, then a left, and we pull up the driveway, home.

Photo credit: Urban Rose.

"Come on," I say. "Someone unbuckle Joey."

We pile out of the car, into the house, and sidle up to watch the football game. I pop huge bounding bowls of popcorn, and we laugh, and we cheer. And camaraderie springs up there between us. All that tackling and straining toward victory, and something better than football happens. We hold on to it like an invisible thread pulling us together.

Photo credit: Urban Rose.

Gratitude:

5586. Craig travels on a five day retreat with his team from work. Friday comes, and with it, him safely home.

5587. I knit away on a baby blanket, these restless hands busy and productive.

5588. The children surround me while Craig is gone.

Photo credit: Urban Rose.

5589. "I love this book," Myra says. "It's my best-friend-book."

5590. "Good job, Barry-Bear," Joe says and squeeezes Barry. "You're a good helper," he says.

5591. "Are lollipops fruit?" Lu wants to know. "Myra says they ARE."

5592. "How has your eye been feeling?" I ask Lucy. "I don't know," she says and looks at her palm, "I haven't been feeling it."

5593. Another week closes. Another week begins. The count down continues: we pass week 38.

Photo credit: Urban Rose.

Pillow Talk

"What?" Craig says. He doesn't look up, there propped on his elbows across the bed.

"I didn't say anything," I say.

"Your breathing changed. I could tell you were thinking something," he says.

"Oh," I slide my hand under one of his elbows. "I was wondering where Joey put all those cupcake liners," I say.

Cupcakes. Game night. Cerissa had called all the cousins up for chocolate cupcakes. Half of the kids still wanted to finish a game. When the first wave left, Joey ate every last cupcake, not even a crumb lagged behind, not even a cupcake liner.

"Yeah, I don't know," Craig says. We shake our heads.

"I mean, he couldn't have eaten FOUR cupcake liners, could he?"

"Well, maybe."

So it is, the miniature version of Craig eats four cupcakes, liners and all. "Did you eat the REST of the cupcakes?" we'd asked. "Yeah," he'd said.  All that guileless grin, we just shook our heads.

Guileless just like his father.

Gratitude:

5508. The kids explode in Canasta play. "Mom," Jack says, "I'll be on your team, even though you usually lose."

5509. And then I WIN. Again and again.

5510. Pete and Rosie come for late night Canasta. The children explode with excitement jumping off the furniture until we quash them into manners. Their faces register true shock when break the news: the children will not be staying up late to play.

5511. My mom makes an extra quilt top and passes it on to Jane. Jane pieces the batting. Mom brings a backing. It's almost ready to quilt.

5512. Jane and I spend Saturday afternoon sewing together.

5513. A dear friend who lives too far away to visit, calls, and we chat. Somehow the distance feels smaller.

5514. We have a game night with Dan and Cerissa. Pinochle. Popcorn. Cupcakes. Cheers and guffaws. The girls win, but we all can't wait to play again.

5515. We watch a Craig Groschel sermon as a family. We marvel at a sense of purpose and truth that solidifies between us.

5516.  School continues to clip along. "The government was just basically treating them like plebians," Jane explains taxation without representation.

5517. "I just need 200 more," Lucy says, "and then I will have enough. I'm trying to do one thousand two hundred math problems every day as part of my school."

5518. Craig and I preview Monumental by Kirk Cameron. Cogent, unexpected, and solid, we recommend it.

5519. We begin the fun of picking Christmas photos. Our favorite photographer fashions a Christmas card for our family.

5520. Christmas is in the air, Thanksgiving the perfect prologue. Traditions of gratitude envelope our family.

Ladybug

"Mom, did you know I actually caught a ladybug with my BARE hands?" Myra says. She hikes a shoeless foot up on the brick wall and lilts into the raised garden bed.

I pluck basil leaves. Twenty-six, twenty-seven, I stack them in my palm.

"It was a RED one," she says. "The red ones are the HARDEST to find." Eyebrows reeled up earnest, she looks at me out of the top of her eyes. I glance up, mimic the sincerity, a smile snagging free of my lips.

"Oh," I say.

"Oh," she says, "THERE'S one." She points to a cucumber leaf, limp in the midday heat, and sets her hand over it. A moment later, she palms something the size of a bb.

Thirty-one, thirty-two, The perfect salad has forty leaves. I swish my hand through the basil rows, scan for ample leaves.

"Mom," she says, "I love you. But I'm not gonna let this one go."

Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, I feel a dribble of sweat slide down my neck.

"What if I caught TWO at a time?" she says. "EW, it kinda tickles when they walk." Encased in cupped hands, ceiling becomes floor and floor ceiling, as she squirms against the tickling bug.

Forty. I stand straight, press a hand to the small of my back.

"I maybe will call my ladybug DAVID," she says.

I lace a few cucumber vines up the trellis, snap off two baby cucumbers, and slide through the heat back inside. Myra follows like a bell on my ankle.

I chop the cucumbers, mince the basil, try to preserve a small radius of elbow room while children lean up over countertops to watch.

"Jack, you can be the ladybug's grampa 'cause you're a boy," Myra says. "And ALL the girls can be grammas. And I can be the MOMMY." She presses her lips into an elongated mmmm when she says mommy.

"Okay," Lucy says.

The girls nod. I chop. Jack gives his grasshopper cage a rattle to make the critter jump. Between Myra's lilting and my chopping, an undercurrent emerges, a tip-tapping rhythm. Everyone takes a station, plays a part.

Soon a whole symphony lifts out of our very skin. Jack and Jane make pancakes. Myra and Lu help Joe orbit his stool into the perfect position. Joe takes himself potty -- twice -- and shouts his success. Jack washes the fresh eggs. Jane blends the batter. Lucy burps her dolly. And Myra all the while circles and chirps and chimes.

That undercurrent of rhythm, pleasure, we smile into each other's eyes.





Gratitude:

5510. A dear college friend calls out of the blue. We visit like old times.

5511. A close friend decides to use the same writing curriculum. We compare notes. Excitement grows.

5512. A quilting magazine.

5513. America by Dinesh D'Souza.

5514. We roll out long hours of reading to line our afternoons.

5515. Friends invite us to a bbq. The sun sets before we finally head home.

5516. My mom throws a birthday party for Dad and Peter. And I feel it again, that same chiming rhythm of everyone doing their part. We crescendo in concentric circle of affirmation for Dad and Peter.

5517. Craig takes me on a date. We start with a squabble and then laugh it off, water off a duck's back. Small stepping stones of agreement, and irritation sheds like old skin.

5518. We eat dinner on the farm. The children pick raspberries and cherries and run with the wind through their hair. We leave after dusk.

5519. Craig works on his day off, but still the day laces up in a bbq out back, affection ever-present.

5520. Joe graduates to big-boy shorts, the kind he can pull up and down himself as nature calls.

5521. An alligator t-shirt.

5522. Almond croissant and coffee.

5523. Cerissa celebrates a birthday. Her friendship, bedrock and perfect, grows every year.

5524. We meet the cousins at Mike's Donuts. Everything converges in sugar bliss.

5525. I visit the doctor. Thirteen weeks pregnant, and we hear that tiny heartbeat. Joy laces through our family.

5526. I fix the memories of this summer in my heart like sapphires and rubies.

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" I say. Myra and I swing our legs, a gargantuan garden bench our perch. We scan the river for Mr. and Mrs. Mallard no where to be seen.

"Like how many kids?" she says.

"No, what do you want to BE when you grow up?" I carve a fingernail into the foil and wax paper of a lifesaver roll.

"Like my name?" she chirps in ascending scale.

"No," I say. I flip a cherry lifesaver from the roll, pop it in my mouth. She nibbles the corner of a hand sized chocolate bar, a square one. "No," I say again, "what do you want to BE?"

"Like type?" she cocks her head. "Like boy or girl?" She tries for another nibble. A flap of gold foil pokes her nose. I clank the life saver into my cheek.

"No," I say, "like, what do you want to DO?"

"Oh." She tries for another bite. The foil flubs her nose again. "I don't know." She plucks the chocolate from the foil sheet. "Can't I just take it out?"

"No, it will sprinkle crumbs on your dress and melt." I open the foil like a book and stuff it back in. "Here, just fold it over like this." I crumple the corner.

"Ok."

"So what do you want to BE?"

"A girl." Red ringlets and green paisley dress, she scans the river bank. "Look, the water's bubbly over there." She points at a white smudge. I crunch the cherry saver.

"Who's the best girl you know?" I say. 

"Me."

"Who's the best woman you know?"

"You." We nod. The river rushes, a trickling rush from our perch. We swing our legs. "I would have said Jesus," she says "'cause he's the nicest one forever."

"Huh." We exchange listening sounds. "Excepts he's a boy," I say.

"Yeah." A neon green bike cycles by on the trail.

"Anything you want me to be praying about for you?" I say.

"Like at bedtime?" She flashes her blue eyes at me like blinking beacons.

"Anything you want."

"Oh, like bad dreams. I had a bad dream someone was trying to kill me." She strikes the casual beat of adult chat.

"Kill you?" I splutter. "What do you mean?"

"Someone had a bunch of animals they put out," she says. "And they tried to fire some fire on me and kill me. And then I tried to kick him." She nods to the commentary. I note her prayer. But I notice fresh how she's mastered the call and return of conversation.

Bad dreams, foible of childhood, we map the terrain, unmask the shadows, practice the gentle sway of words exchanged. Mr. and Mrs. Mallard never show up, but mother and daughter never leave.

Gratitude:

5426. The hot water heater breaks. Again. Craig fixes it. Again.

5427. Cerissa has the Tuesday girls over. She spoils us with salad, balsamic and basil. We dig perennials in her front bed for Rose.

5428. I make rice salad for dinner. "Jesus, thank-you that Mom served us expensive food for dinner," Lucy prays.

5429. Craig's mom celebrates another birthday.

5430. Jack weeds the whole wide long garden over and over. He pulls a chair up garden-side, gestures for me to sit, watch the show. He weeds. I recline, eat an ice cream sandwich.

5431. Dad and Mom join us for bbq. Craig makes burgers; we stack 'em high and deep. Conversation weaves with the trill of unexpected turns. We laugh until we cry.

5432. "Jack's feeding his spider some lunch," Lucy says. "I need some tape for it so the jumping spider doesn't get out."

5433. "For SHAME," Jane shouts across the back lawn. "Mom, he's gonna build a new fort just so he doesn't have to be in there with Myra." He hangs his head. They make a new plan.

5434. I catch a stroke of the flu, turn by turn become truly pathetic. Of course Mom know just how to cheer me, and Craig can still make me laugh.

5435. Peppermint soap, a bunch of bananas, ginger candy, more candy, lollipops, chapstick -- a Trader Joe's run.

5436. A green striped summer dress, summer aren't you almost here?

5437. We take the kids to their first parade, a Flag Day parade, farm town style. A family of dear friends joins us.

5438. "That is something I am not going to forget for a very long time," Lucy commentates the parade. She pats a haul of candy the size of her face.

5439. We bbq burgers on the farm. It's a shindig of friends and family and mustard-ketchup-drippy burgers. Craig's mom bakes three pies.

5440. Father's Day, one of my favorite days. I celebrate my father, first pillar of masculine strength, devotion, and love. I celebrate my husband, the wellspring of our home. And a shout out to Craig's dad, the first man he respected.

5441. Strength flows from these men, substance that is impossible to counterfeit. Hats off to the men who hold up the sky.

Smile

"Smile, smile, smile," I poke Joey's cheeks and twiddle his ears. "Smile, big boy." ABC Song Book under one arm, he relents, splits a grin. I smile. "Good job, go play." He thumps off in pudgy bare feet.

"Why do you do that?" Jane says. I stand to full height. There at the old black table, she watches me. I slide next to her on the bench. That speckled gray sweater Great-Grammie made years ago, a pair of blue jeans, a pile of schoolwork, she pauses in natural habitat to fish an answer out of my face.

"We know how to smile when we don't really want to," I say, "like just make your face do it, but he doesn't." I picture again his impish frown, the whiny cock of his head, the way he clutched the sing-song-book and almost mouthed the word NO though no one was there. I see the same reel playing behind Jane's eyes, as if we are reviewing the same footage.

"Oh," she says. "He thinks your feelings control your face. But we know your face controls your feelings." She gives a half nod, almost a salute, agreement, as if joining a team.

"Yeah," I say. That schoolwork bunched up around us, Jack galloping through math drill an arm's length away, and for a moment, the whole lens of learning leans in on the polestar of Joe's face.

Smile. Make yourself do it. Let the tail feathers of emotion fold perfectly under your wings.

Something placid and full, like a rising moon, rests on Jane's face. She glides through the work like an open sail.





Gratitude:

5395. "This has STRAWBERRIES in everyone," Myra chimes over my lentil soup garnished with salsa.

5396. We have dinner with my parents, the night a perfect circle of love.

5397. Dad tells Mom to buy treats for the Air Show, so we shop together. We make a pitstop at the park to sketch iris.

5398. Craig's Mom brings up a flat of fennel she let sit under the warming love of her greenhouse.

5399. Craig's grammie turns 99, a real gem of a woman.

5400. We meet for the annual Air Show on a blanket in a field near the end of the runway. The airplane army on precision display, the children's mouths drop open. They cheer. They cry. They laugh and point. The thunder crack of their engines rattles our chests.

5401. Tears fill my eyes. The honor of men and women willing to die for our freedom fills me with gratitude and salute. Honor.

5402. My baby brother turns 30. He makes it look like the perfect age, does it every year.

5403. I plant the rest of our garden except for a few marigold. A wholesome season of growth begins. I check it every morning.

5404. I finish Great Expectations. The ending surprises me.

5405. We reel in the week, prepare for the next. A fermata of enjoyment separates the the two.