A Sweater

"Lucy, maybe you should grab a sweater," pigtailed curls disappear through the kitchen. Lucy and three more sets of bare feet thump by.

"Daddy's outside," someone shouts.

As she rounds the corner, Lulie calls over her shoulder, "Mmm, I would like a sweater, but I will go without."

And as if the whole ocean could wash out in single wave, the house is silent for a moment. Daddy's home. The whole world tilts toward him.

Gratitude:

1524. Lucy's determination that you can't get out of Hell because they have guards watching.

1525. Her reiteration twice in one week that she actually feels better after she gets in trouble for doing something naughty.

1526. Janie's nod, "Yeah."

1527. Little glimpses into the silhouettes of their conscience.

1527. How Lucy wears a winter mitten to burp her babydoll.

1528. How Jane peeks over at Jack in school, "Is there any way you could be self-disciplined right now, and get your math out?" she asks. "'Cause I'm not in charge of that so..." She trails off.

1529. Jack's patience.

1530. How when I make my pregnant self a whole plate of nachos, Jane eyes them and smiles, "Momma, that just looks so good. I'm glad you get that."

1531. How as we read more of Huckleberry Finn Jane bursts into praying for him one night and Jack adds, "Jane, that was a really good prayer."

1532. Lucy saying, "God gave me two eyes," as she peels her eyepatch off.

1533. Teaching the kids how to make leaf rubbings and Jacks exclamation, "Look! I made mine the color of mold."

1534. Janie whisked away for an overnight Gramma date. And how she sits in the back of Gramma's car as if royalty while we all come to kiss her goodbye.

1535. How she's walking on air when she comes back.

1536. Lucy's, "We miss Jane. I just love her."

1537. How we happen upon Lucy's little treasure trove of ABC gum and throw it away.

1538. Correction: apparently it was everyone's little treasure trove.

1539. How Lucy sings, "Bless me God, bless me God..." as she works.

1540. How Jack strips the sheets off his bed and Lucy's bed to help out.

1541. The absolute BEST family pics ever. Thanks Rosie!!

1542. Jane's moss green sweatshirt and matching owl tee, the soft brown shirt with five-petaled flowers.

1543. How Craig takes the kids outside to dig carrots while I make dinner.

1544. The gentle sigh of Myra's breathing as she sleeps.

1545. Lucy's conclusion as she leans on a kitchen cutting board, "GOD gave us TWO cutting boards."

1546. How it's just a small and superficial blood clot behind my knee.

1547. How my parents aren't anywhere near Kenya's unstable northern border. How their trip in the southern part has been so fruitful.

1548. George. The little boy we sponsor in Kenya, and how my mom brought him a photo book from us, and hugs, and miles and miles of love. The smiling picture she took of him.

1549. Janie's "Thank-you, Daddy," when he rousts her before dawn to volunteer with him.

1550. Listening to a sermon by my brother on itunes.

1551. Dinner with sis-in-law, food made for me, and friendship that makes you feel normal again.

1552. Craig's exhortation: You gotta remember, whatever the situation, you can handle it. Otherwise God wouldn't have put you there.

1553. How every situation looks a little different that way.

A Drink

"Momma, I got a drink with this," A chunk of old cushion foam.

"Oh."

"I'll show you how I do it. We just dip it in and just," she opens her mouth and sucks the water out. Then, she dunks it again, "See?"

"Oh, I see."

Jane grins, "Yeah, I just dip it in and drink it."

Jack rounds the corner. A wadded dish towel drips on his toes.

"Oh Lucy, MAN!" The kitchen floor split into a lake, they haul bath towels and more bowls and rip the foam piece into three chunks and drink and drink.

Then they carry their vats outside. "Momma we have way too many sponges in the bowl. You can come out here and drink a little water with us in the shade." Before I answer they disappear, flop out on the back grass.

"Can we invite Logan and Thad over? Because we have too many sponges. Can we invite Logan and Thad over to drink a little?" They sprawl out on elbows and drink up lakes of summer.





Gratitude:

97. Birthday cake.

98. Pudgy arms squeezed and squished into new dress until a seam unravels.

99. Sewing machine and red thread.

100. Tall daughter grown taller, curls tied back.

101. Cousins and cousins and aunties, uncles, grand parents, great-grand and more cousins.

102. Morning runs.

103. New shoes because husband insisted. Running shoes.

104. A race! I got to run a race. Jane prayed I'd win. And that was better than winning.

A Boy

"He's fast," Daddy says, "but I'm FASTER!" Dustbuster in hand, boy and his father tear through the kitchen, "Where'd he go?" Daddy calls. Half-a-rumpus past the fridge, he freezes, "Shhh. There he is." He points, a fly.

A fly. The hunt is on. Boy watches Daddy, squints his eyes, leans close. Daddy raises both eyebrows, "Allllmost," he drawls. He edges the Dustbuster slowly, slowly, yes there, into the fly's blind spot -- THERE! And ALMOST! In half-a-second-less-than-no-time the fly floats back to life.

Later, the vacuum clicks off, "Gotcha!"

"Daddy, can he fly out of there?"

Daddy frowns, "Click, VAaroOOooM!"

They trounce back through the kitchen and into the yard, trophy in hand.







Later, Jane and Jack teeter-todder in and out of the house, leave the door open for lots more flies. "Why do you have to talk about guns and toots all the time?" Janie wants to know.

Jack shrugs. "Wanna go outside and play?"

"Ok." Off they go.

Lulie runs to catch up.








Gratitude:

86. Sleep. More sleep than a month ago.

87. Counters clean and wiped smooth.

88. Bleach solution.

89. Soap and running water.

90. Laundry wadded into stacks -- folded they say.

91. Bacon and brown sugar, black beans.

92. The boy who wipes his nose on the couch and peeks over, "I love you, Momma."

93. My sliced fingernail, almost grown back now.

94. That Lulie hasn't flooded the toilet lately.

95. The Declaration of Independence and the blood spilled on my behalf.

96. The freedom to worship Jesus.

Puzzles

"Ok, they close in 11 minutes." Craig's blue eyes track oncoming traffic, "Do you want me to just run in?" He makes a left, then lobs over two lanes.

"Sure," I crunch a roasted almond, "3.6 miles and then a right onto 99."

"A right?" he flips the blinker. "I still can't believe there were 12 at the last place." He grins and noses us into the right lane. 12. Puzzles.

"Now you want to look for Aurora." We wade through more dot-to-dot directions. Craig squeezes our big car through traffic and into a front row parking spot.

"Love ya, bye," he calls and sprints under big red letters into another thrift store. I grab my book, bent open still to page 88, and savor a few more paragraphs. It's a treasure hunt.

Now and then I spot him tall and giddy through the store windows. He scans shelves bulged with games and puzzles. Puzzles. Yes, there he is; he bobs back to the car plunder under arm, opens the back and calls, "Guess how many."

Between doctor visits and big city traffic snarls, we weave thrift store to thrift store. 93. We've collected 93 since last winter. Puzzles. Springbok, of course. We spill our inbetween-evenings in puzzles and chatter and the quiet pressing of pieces into place. The good life.






Gratitude:

65. Mint chocolate and coffee, roasted almonds.

66. Sweaty curls around Lulie's face after nap.

67. Expositional comentaries on line for free.

68. Family gathered around barbecued meat, beans, watermelon.

68. Black beans simmered in cumin.

69. Strawberries, leaves and all.

70. Lucy's hug for the surgeon who still checks her eye.

71. Boy hair bleached red in the summer sun.

72. Burnt hot dogs my children ate anyway.

73. Popsicles dripped down their chins.

74. Tomato plants stretched tall toward the sun.

75. Hands of love that sprouted them for me. All 29.

76. Marigolds and cosmos and trailing planter that came with them.

77. Cool night air.

78. Soft bed sheets.

79. Bare feet on wood floors.

80. Tired shoulders that sigh into bed.

81. Cherry ice cream Janie ate on our date.

82. Lulie's swimsuit on backwards. Three times.

83. Baby fat.

84. Baby smiles.

85. Stinky baby feet.

Table Talk

"Momma," Janie says. I dab a make-up brush at my cheeks, raise my eyebrows. She leans up to the mirror, "why can I see blood-hoses in your eyes?" She squints.

"Oh, do I look tired?" Apparently.


Later, we sit around the lunch table, "Just because it's funny doesn't mean you should talk about it," I say. Jane licks a blob of jelly from her finger.

"Like pooping your pants."

"Yeah," Jack smiles, "It would be SO wrong but SO funny." He slaps his knee, a tsunami of giggles breaks over the table. Even little Lulie 'bout rolls off the bench.


Later we find TOOT, POOP, and PEE scrawled on the kids' whiteboard, the letters all warbled with laughter. That Janie's a speller. Only PEE was spelled wrong. Anyone else remember the hilarious poop and pee?

Jobs

Work. Janie feeds the dogs and shuttles them to the dog run each morning. Jack empties the dishwasher. On Saturdays Daddy pays them. Money. REAL money.

He parses it out in neat stacks. Tithe. Save. Spend. They carry around slips of green and clanking change in zip bags. They roll and unroll them in sweaty hands and wad them into pockets. We find the tattered bags tucked under bunk bed boards, down couch cushions, half emptied in Lulies gentle care.






Bananas. They buy bananas. Janie labels them with Sharpie.






They eat banana after banana until each bunch disappears. Bananas all their own, the sweet joy slides down into their tummies.

Lil' Sack of Sugar

And today she officially smiled. At me. Three times.

Maybe soon we'll capture that too.


***


Also, my friend, Rosie, inspired our birth announcement with THIS photo.

She promises more to come. :)

Manure.

Manure. Our children can hardly believe their ears, "Cow POOP?!" Jack squints one eye. Janie laughs, "In the GARDEN?"

Daddy distributes 20 bags across our back vegetable garden. He empties them in big black strokes.

"Hey Daddy," Jane eyes the remaining sacks, "how do you think they get the cows to poop in the bags?"

A miracle, I suppose. Any takers?

Break out the GOGGLES!

That's RIGHT!




It's SWIM weather!




Or rather sprinkler weather.




You know, since the thermometer hit almost 70 today.

***
Also, news flash: Jack is totally set on naming the baby OLIVE. Lucy goes back and forth on the name. Jane is against it. And Craig says the only way he will name a child OLIVE is if she is born with a pimiento in her lips. Plus, it's not 4 letters.

Soooo any more name ideas? :)

Good NEWS!

No more breech baby! Our darlin' is HEAD DOWN.

Thank-you for your prayers and suggestions. {HUG}





Now, one other small problem...

She has no name. Help!

The only rule: 4 letters. You know, like Jane, Jack, and Lucy!

Names, anyone?

Makin' Toast

Wormie

Thanks, Auntie Cerissa, Uncle Dan, and the wild boy cousins.





Now the kids are BONKERS





about WORMS!





Welcome to the worm mansion.

The BODY Book

"It's something I saw in the Body Book," she says.

"Oooh. So, it's sort of alive and something you saw in the Body Book?"

"Yeah." Janie grins and dips her grilled-cheese in a ramekin of salad dressing. We're playing Guess What I'm Thinking. She's winning.

Before we know it Jane describes a cut she used to have on her finger and how inside it looked just like in the Body Book.

The Body Book - 912 color pages of well, the BODY, human anatomy. It spells out every system and part of the body. I'm sort of a nerd; I love books like that. The children POUR over it.





"Yeah, but you can't really see it," she continues.

"Ok. But you said it's pink?"

Janie bobs her head up and down, "Yeah, and sort of comes out of your back and into your arms."

Daddy grabs the Body Book and the hunt is on. We look at skin and bones, fingers, joints, nerves, and finally settle on MUSCLES. That's it, muscles! Even though we guess her idea, Jane shines. We're playing. Isn't that how kids say, I love you, at play?

Kisses

"Jesus, thank-you that I get to be with my mommy today. Amen." And here I thought she was going to bless the food.

Later it's nap time. Jane strings hugs and kisses into long tangents. Her small hand on mine, she grins, "My whole heart is full of kisses, Momma."

I play along, "Oh, I save them for when I am sad." I say.

"Hey Momma, is it ever hard to get out just one?" They're all bumping together and filling her with giggles.

"Oh, I usually take a whole handful because they all just sort of stick together. Is that what you do?"

"Oh. No. I just take them all out in my hand and just look for the one I want. But you have to kind of be careful and not tip them or they will fly all over. I actually had that happen once and then they get mixed up with everyone else's and they are hard to find." Kisses are serious business.

"So what did you do?"

"Well, for a while I put my name on them but that kind of works."

Every kiss has a name. Sometimes I have so many I almost forget.



**Special thanks to S. Cowger for the pictures.

Huckleberry Finn

Children, meet your father, Huckleberry Finn.

























He cut the pole from a tree and dug the worms.


















So, I guess that make me, Mark Twain...?


















Hold on, let me thread this worm... don't pull yet.


























Wait for it... Wait for it...

























Wait for it... NOW!


















It a lunker.


















That was so easy I can do it too, Daddy... you just hold the pole.

























Let's give it a good YANK.

























I knew we could snag one!


















Guess the rest of the fish are safe for now.

:)