Oatmeal

"Joe, Jooooe, make me oatmeal," Betsy hollers up the stairs. "Joe," she staccatos the air, "make. me. oatmeal else I'll TELL on you." Her bare feet pad on the wooden stairs, They pat-pat across the wide kitchen all hardwood floor and nothing else yet, not even cupboards.

A promenade of feet, bare feet, stocking feet, tromping feet, and Joe pokes his head around the basement stairwell.

"Hi, Mom," he says.

"Hey," I say from the couch under the kitchen. "Better make Betsy oatmeal," I say.

"Yeah," he says a half-grin pulling half his face skyward. He purses his lips and ducks into an unfinished bathroom turned temporary kitchen. A clattering of bowls, the soft snow of oatmeal, hot faucet water, the crinkle of a cranberry bag yawned open and he emerges.

"Hey," I say, nod.

"Hey," he says, nod and same half-smile.

"Thanks."

"Yup." He plants a bowl at the coffee table next to mine. Betsy sidles up to my knees and scoops warm bites of still runny oatmeal to her mouth.

"That's my oatmeal," she says.

The morning unspools like this.

Then, it's lunch and everyone washes up outside, dishes unfinished, an economy of bread crumbs piled on the cutting board littered across the makeshift kitchen. I keep meaning to call the kids in to polish the kitchen, but the afternoon yawns itself open and swallows the middle of the day. Somewhere well past two, I head downstairs. I stop.

"How did you get so FILTHY?" I say. Halfway down the stairs, Myra carrying Betsy, two dirt brown faces blink up at me.

"Um," Myra says. Betsy blinks, her arm slung around Myra's neck.

"HOW did you get so FILTHY?" I say.

"Um, playing outside?" Myra says. They blink, astonishment and mirth awash their faces.

"Oh," I say as I notice dirt embedded in Betsy's thankfully already brown dress. But those blinking eyes, "Oh," I say.

They trundle down the stairs and for all the outrageous dirt covering their bodies I forget about the kitchen. By the time I gaze out the picture window, I see a hole the size of a riding lawnmower in the middle of the old carrot bed.

"Oh," I say. "Oh."

Yup, that's life right now. From oatmeal at the coffee table, to bread crumbles sleeted across the kitchen, to a hole birthed across the carrot bed, signs and wonder are everywhere. I shake my head. I hope I can memorize all the terrain before everything changes and we finally finish this kitchen remodel.

Gratitude:

6374. I make a pot of tomato basil soup in the little bathroom kitchen. It tastes like God himself made it for all the beans and rice we have been eating.

6375. Dear friends invite us the the birthday party of their little girl. A meal shared, a mile-post marked, and the communion of friendship surrounds us. And all that food made from scratch, so abundant and nourishing, the words of encouragement shared between us, it was an event that was more than all the parts.

6376. A neighbor brings us asian pears from the tree in her yard.

6377. Jane and I have late night conversations four out of five nights. It starts with math homework, but we could talk all night in that quiet end of day pool of time.

6378. Craig continues to spend every waking moment puzzling together the kitchen remodel. I note again his steady persistence, nothing flashy, nothing even to really notice most days, but I see it's the foundation the whole house is built on. Good old fashioned dependability is underrated.

6379. I get an afternoon with my Mom before she heads to see her dad. We measure the universe with our words and compare long streamers of questions turning them over and over and over until we've both memorized everything we want to know. In the process crumbles of knowledge land in our laps. We gobble them up nourishment filling us both.

6380. Even though I get a headache and feel desperately ill for a day, the week seems good. Craig holds everything together, the children fill in the gaps, and everyone knows how to make something good for someone smaller than them.