Messages

Photo credit: Urban Rose.

"Momma, Momma," Myra says.

I look up from pools of honey toast. "Hmm?"

"Did you know this looks BORING to me," she says. She gestures to a picture dictionary of the human body.

"What do you think BORING means?" I say.

"I don't know."

"Oh."

Wednesday, we read the BORING book. A careful perusal and she still mixes up brains and guts. They look the same.


***

Photo credit: Urban Rose.

Thursday breakfast. Tappity-tap-tap, tap-tap, Jane clatters the blinds. Tap-tap, tap, tap. Tap-ta-tap-tap --  ten-year-old intensity bound up in tappity-tap fingers.

"Jane," I finally unleash, "I can't bear that sound."

"I was seeing how long I could bear it," she says. We grin. Of course.


***

Photo credit: Urban Rose.

Friday nap time. Myra rouses Joe. "Joey, are you scared?" she says.

"Yeah," he says in post-sleep grog.

"You don't have to be scared 'cause Jesus is with you," she sing-songs.

He grunts the usual wake-up greeting, blankie over face.


***

Photo credit: Urban Rose.

Saturday haircuts. "I got a haircut," Joe wallops through the kitchen dressed in superhero skivvies. "I got a haircut, and I washed my haircut off with soap," he says.

"Joe, Joe," I say as I set dinner's burrito buffet. "Joe go tell Daddy. I love you," I whisper in his ear. He hugs my knees and gallops to the living room.

He trots a circle then flops on the couch. "Dad," he says, "Mom LIKES me." A brief pause, message delivered, he rolls to the ground, perpetual motion in flight. Landing half tritt-trot, he rolls on.

Message delivered: Mom LIKES me. Yup. The week distills and coalesces down to one single thought: Mom LIKES me. Our world pulls together like the laces of a shoe cinching up for flight.





Gratitude:

5594. Chocolate and hair ponies and grocery necessities all in one trip.

5595. Craig fixes a sink faucet, a shower faucet, and orders parts for another faucet fix. I never have to hire a plumber

5596. My dad replaces the cord on our space heater.

Photo credit: Urban Rose.

5597. Craig washes the car, then rallies the troops to clean out the inside.

5598. I commission Jane to be my kitchen manager for the two weeks after the baby is born.

5599. I knit another baby sweater in cream and mint green.

5600. We donate extra stuff to Goodwill and tidy up the sunroom.

5601. Everyone waits for the new baby.

Photo credit: Urban Rose.