Myra

"Sometimes something tickles on me, and do you know what it is?" Myra chirps.

"What?" I say, the the adult world punctured by her felicity.

"Nothing." She nods. Happy discovery dispensed, she hiccups past a sack of sweet potatoes, Joey trailing behind like a synchronizes swimmer.

Later, we pray before bed.

"Please help the baby be healthy and whole," Myra prays. "And please help her to go and be a friend to me. Amen." Her quiet submission lilts lightly across the other prayers. The stillness of a request, the un-presumption, the quiet wait -- here we all wait.

Gratitude:

5639. "Maybe the fruit flies should fly to Costco 'cause there's a lot of food there," Myra says.

5640. I talk my mom into sewing a baby quilt for the new baby. Pinks and greens, old fashioned flowers, a soft cloud of a back, it's perfect.

5641. The Tuesday Girls take communion together.

5642. Craig trades his old phone in for an iPod touch so I can text for free.

5643. Craig and the kids pick buckets of Italian plums, then Craig and I can them.

5644. Rotisserie chicken wraps and Asian slaw, turn into chicken soup for a week.

5645. Lucy loses her first tooth.

5646. A vintage round frame -- my mom brings over an old wedding photo of Craig and me, perches it on the piano.

5646. The children slack off on several school subjects and then learn the good lesson of catching up during their free time.

5647. Many evenings find us dessert-less, and then Craig bring home cinnamon rolls. Bliss.

Sewing

"Does Aunt Libby sew quilts, or does she spend most of her free time doing math?" Lu asks. Across the room, she feeds the first strips of a new quilt into the sewing machine.

"Um, I guess you'll have to ask her," I say from my own sewing station, a checkered quilt taking shape.

Aunt Libby, now mother of three, taught high school math when she and Jesse got married. When the kids found out she worked old college math problems just for fun, she became a legend.

Lucy holds up the polkadots and stripes of her own checkered blue quilt. "Hey, look," she calls to me. I pause, nod.

"Looks great. You're sewing so even compared to before." She grins, lines up the next strip, rumbles it through with the stop/start of someone perfecting the edge as she goes. I leap frog my own machine to life.

"It's so relaxing," Lu says as I slow at the corner, "to sit and do your quilt."

"Yep," I say.

"Even though it's exhausting, it doesn't really feel like it," she says.

I catch her eye. She's holding up another link in the quilt. We smile, then chatter the machines back to life.

Even though it's exhausting, it doesn't really feel like it. She's named it, the very best pleasures of all. Betwixt the chatter of our dueling machines, pleasure blooms between us.

Gratitude:

5629. "Oh, why are you naked?" I ask Myra. "I don't know," she says. "No, why are you NAKED?" I try again. "Um," she looks at me sideways, "because I forgot to put my clothes on?"

5630. "Everyday I make my bed," she says later. "I'm gonna go check if I made my bed."

5631. I battle the world's worst head cold. When I pull to the side of the road to puke from all the sinus pressure, the kids chorus their comfort. "Do you think the other cars know you are pregnant?" they say.

5632. "When you look at someone who isn't your mom, it doesn't look like they could have had babies," Lu says.

5633. Aunt Rosie takes our annual family pictures. Once again she captures the invisible fibers of who we are. Even Joey smiles despite himself.

5634. I take Jane and Jack on separate dates. Then Craig takes me on one. We use an old gift card we forgot about. I eat the best burger of my life.

5635. Jane and I make apple crisp together. We do that silent communication thing where one is doing the next step before the other can even think to ask.

5636. She offers to make us another peach pie.

5637. Craig saves up for a new phone then gives me his old one.

5638. The week blurs by in a flurry of highs and lows. The steadfast love of Jesus pierces them all, a perfect horizon of hope.

Sunday

"Mom, Joey is eating the brown sugar," Lu hollers underneath the bedroom door.

Ugh. I roll to my back. "I'll deal with it when I get up," I call toward her voice.

The patter of little feet chase littler feet back toward the kitchen. I throw back the covers and fumble for the bathroom. Then I stare at the closet, mentally assemble nine outfits before I settle on a church sensible ensemble.

"Mom, Joe's chasing me with the scissors," Myra blusters through the door.

Joe, scissors in hand, cavorts to a stop, catches my eye, and hops from one foot to the other. "No, Momma. No, Momma," he squeals.

The morning carries on like this, one lurching stop to the next. We finally land for lunch somewhere around 1:30, Jane ironing out a furrow between her brows and Jack setting the table.

"Well, next time I could just not tell you what's for lunch in case I have to change my mind," I say. "That's what we do for Joey."

"Nooo," Jane sighs.

Little pails of soup, fresh stale bread, butter. We eat. And sit. And slop a little more bread in the broth.  Something like calm settles in, a slush around our ankles.

"Could you possibly find me a book before naps?" Jane says.

"Yeah, I could probably do that," I say. I stack Craig's empty bowl in mine.

"Being book-less," Jane says, "is sort of like being lifeless."

"Yeah," I grin, "I guess it is. I'll be down stairs. Come down when you're ready."

The afternoon gradually sighs to a full stop. Jack clatters the last of the dishes into the dishwasher. Jane and Lucy hang the wet towels half of the family left in a heap wherever they dressed. A thin glaze of order drizzles in the cracks.

I find Joe obediently settled in to the boy's bottom bunk.

"I love you, Joe," I say. I hunker down cheek to cheek and wait for his eyes to settle on mine. "I love you," I say. His pupils trace my face.

"Need hug," he says. Plaid shirt and checkered blankie, we melt into a hug. He blooms affection.

And then like a treasure hunt, I search out each child, smile into their eyes. We hold still, feel the slow moments of love.

The harsh moments fill out with muscles and flesh. Discipline frames us in. Affection nourishes us.

"Look Momma," Joe calls as I tarry past his room. "I covered myself up." Checkered blankie stretched from toes to shoulders, his voice rings to me. We smile as I pass.

Gratitude:

5608. "I read this much just to see if I could," Lu points to page in Because of Winn Dixie. "And then I was salivating to read more," she says.

5609. "We don't have to do your hair," Myra instructs Joe, "'cause it's all boyish."

5610. Roasted pineapple and habanero sauce.

5611. Salad in a bag. Two of them. The kind guests bring and leave the extra for another day.

5612. More homemade chocolate sauce.

5613. Jane finishes a paper on Christopher Columbus and Jack a fable.

5614. Lucy finishes her first quilt, a dolly one.

5615. We cut the fabric for another one all in blues.

5616. The children practice again the age old principle: free time comes from hard work.

5617. Jane makes a peach pie. We eat it all in one sitting -- the nine of us all on the farm.

5618. Craig scrubs the floor underneath the table until it shines.

5619. He trims the gangly banana plant into something more indoor-ish and less likely to take over a seat at the end of the table.

5620. The children help us harvest the last of the garden. Joe breaks out a lifejacket for the occasion.

5621. Plum picking.

5622. Craig turns an old wrought iron patio table into a fire pit.

5623. Craig's mom bakes a ham for us and sends us home with garden fresh green beans.

5624. Half the kids pile in the four-wheeler with Craig and his dad to bring a pile of corn stalks to the neighbor's horses.

5625. I start cutting the fabric for a new quilt of my own. Coral reds, lime greens, garnishes, and twists, Lucy helps me lay out the fabric.

5626. Jack gets a book on how to draw animals.

5627. All week the children leave me notes with chickens and rhinoceros and giraffes and magpies. I even get a kingfisher. I marvel at how a year of practice has taught them to shade.

5628. We all come down with sore throats and colds, and still, we weave a life together, just keep right on going.

Minus

"Are you surprised I can do this while talking?" Lu says.

I look up from a slice of plum toast. Across the table, she writes the answers to addition facts. It's like watching my piano teacher carry on a conversation and play Jesus Loves Me at the same time.

"Yeah," I say. "I am." I swallow, pause to lick plum jam off my lips.

"I think I know why I'm better at minus than plus," she says pencil still scrawling.

"Uh-huh?" I say.

"'Cause I was working harder at minus than plus." Eight plus two, she writes ten.

"Huh," I say.

"I'm so delighted when there's minus," she says.

I watch the pencil trace out neat numbers beneath the equal sign of each problem. I shake my head, spoon more jam onto my toast.

All this after I dragged her unwilling self in from the monkey-bars, I think.

But as I watch each answer form itself in her head and then on the paper, I marvel. I'm so delighted when there's minus. She sees the path. Off road, barely visible, but true: hard work leads to delight.

I steel my mind for the work ahead.





Gratitude:

5591. "Well, that's the end of that fly's life," Jack says after a tha-whack of the flyswatter.

5592. Amish butter, the kind you can taste on toast, even through plum jam.

5593. Turkey wraps. Sausage wraps. Ham wraps. Craig tells me I have to start actually cooking again. Everyone practically cheers when I make wraps -- all week long.

5594. Coconut sour cream fruit salad, the coconut toasted golden brown.

5595. Asian chop salad, the kind that goes perfect in a wrap.

5596. Chocolate sauce -- homemade.

5597. The kids plop Joe in the backyard swing and push, push, push him up to the sky. Under-dogs they call it, and circle like a carnival pushing him, pushing him up to the sky.

5598. "Joe fell out of the swing," Jane calls. "Oh no, what did he hit," I say. "Just the ground," she pipes back. A kiss and he's all better.

5599. "I'm making some sort of whip," Myra says, "but I'm not gonna whip anyone."

5600. Someone gives us a gift: a bunk bed for the girls. Jane beams. She's a top bunk girl.

5601. Mom and I make our weekly coffee date, frame in the world afresh.

5602. I sew together the first steps of a new quilt. Thirty fabrics, three-hundred-twenty squares, the hum of the sewing machine frames the whole of Friday night.

5603. Fresh popcorn, the basement swept clean, Craig plays poker with his buddies.

5604. We make our annual visit to the fair. We leave just as dehydration and exhaustion take over then nap the afternoon away.

5604. I come across Susanna Wesley's definition of sin: Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things: in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself."

5605. I take note of our pastor's first sermon after his sabbatical. He quotes Dallas Willard: Hurry is the archenemy of the spiritual life.

5606. "Who I am becoming as a person," Pastor Joe says, "in the end, is much more important than what I accomplish."

5607. I let these quotes orbit in my mind and once again set my mind to worship our Lord in all I do.

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer. ~Psalm 19:14