Working

"Did you see me working?" Lucy says. She lopes to the front door, waves at me, her therapy goggles covered in fingerprints.

I pull the storm door open. "Yeah, I did." I smile. I had been watching her on the front porch after my run. I pull the orange cord of my ipod up through my shirt, snap the cord out and wind it around my hand.

"Did you see ME?" Myra does a two-step gallop from the kitchen.

"No," I say, " I couldn't see you from where I was standing."

"I was working in the kitchen," she says, "with a vacuum to get all the crumbs. And SPIDERS." She titters and peals giggles. Joe and the dust-buster clatter after her, she half down the hall already.

Then it's almost lunch. A colony of papers litter the table. A collapsed fort leans across the living room floor. The sprawling arms of Myra's comforter completely cover the rug. I sigh, weave my dismay into a plan.

"Hey kids," I call, "can you come in here? I have a special treat for you."

"Is it vinegar?" Jane calls.

"No," I say. I snap a panel door closed over the washer and dryer. "Go get the kids."

"Lu-cy, My-ra," she calls, "come in here. Mom has a treat, and it isn't vinegar."

Vinegar, the all purpose seasoning, I shake my head. We rally to clean up the house, fold up fort supplies, turn in the papers, capture a rogue breakfast bowl, dunk it in the sink. We clean. Cleanness, we get to keep it. Cleanness, the special treat.

Then it's Sunday. We gather up a new week and prepare it for spending. The kids make themselves oatmeal, baptize it in brown sugar. I brew coffee. Joe manhandles the sugar, blazons a skiff across the floor. I corral spare utensils into the sink, suck up the brown sugar. Everyone congregates at the table.

"Lucy," Myra says, "Mom told me spiders like brown sugar. Mom actually told me." We all wait for this to be meaningful. "Right?" Myra turns to me.

"Ah. ANTS," I say.

"ANTS like brown sugar," Myra says, her eyebrows perfect parenthesis over each eye.

"I already KNEW that," Lu says. She stirs an arc in her oatmeal, her face serene.

"Spiders eat bugs; ants eat sugar," I say.

"What do ants eat?" Myra says, her face devoted to mine.

"Sugar," I say.

"What do ANTS eat?" she says.

"Sugar."

"What do SPIDERS eat?" she says, chin dipped, forehead furrowed.

"Bugs."

I blink. She blinks.

"Oh," she says. "That's EWIE."

"Yep."

With a pluck of staccato, she yanks Joey's hands, claps them together. "Come on, Joe-Joe," she says. And she's off, already half through the next measure, Joe a clatter behind her.

I lean on an elbow, let them go. Something expectant lilts behind, snags the slack end of my smile. Expectant. Dauntless. The week presents it's ingredients. I take them in.

Gratitude:

5256. My dad turns 60. Dad, my first measurement of courage and strength, wise, righteous, and humble. Sixty, a great beginning.

5257. I bluster over a mess in the kitchen, spill myself out into the sunroom. "Mom, I have a really nice paragraph," Jack responds. Holed up for silent reading, he points at Revelation 4:8. "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty," he says, "who was, and is, and is to come." I immediately become sane.

5258. "Jesus, help me to get good at writing notes to Mom," Lucy prays. "Amen."

5259. "Joe-Joe, I love you," I whisper in his ear. "Yeah," he says. "You're a good boy," I whisper. "Yeahhhh," he says.

5260. "I have an egg from my chickie," Myra says, waves a nut brown egg in the air. "Here," she says to Joe, "I'm gonna rub it on your cheek. DON'T eat it. Feel, it's WARM."

5261. My brother and his family come to dinner -- soup, salad, bread, IRISH DAIRY CAKE, perfection.

5262. We visit and laugh, the children eating olives, buttering bread at our elbows. I marvel again at that solid rock of heritage, that cornerstone of every conversation, that plumb-bob of loyalty hanging there in the middle of us all. Conversation comes easy.

5263. We replace our bread maker.

5264. Mom and I map out the rhetoric of Ravi Zacharias, trace Truth's silhouette.

5265. Jack wrestles tournament #2. He finds himself the recipient of a very good compliment. "You're the hardest guy I've ever wrestled," says the wrestler who beat him.

5266. We spend the morning in the bleachers surrounded by family.

5267. My nephew turns eleven. At his party his face flashes glimpses of the man he will be -- gracious and strong, funny and kind. Good.

5268. "Joe-Joe, what are you eating? Don't eat that," I say. "Don't worry," Myra chirps. "It's just boogers, Mom."

5269. "Guys," Lucy says as we make lunch, "I saw twenty-eight fire hydrants on the way home from church. Twenty. Eight."

5270. Expectant. I don the clothes of expectancy and prepare for the week.

Zee Company

"Mom, we're called the Zee Company because we're catching soooo many BEES," Lucy pants. She holds up an empty salsa jar, yellow jacket squirming near the lip.

"Wow." I arch my eyebrows, nod, toss a lone flip-flop onto a bluff of shoes marooned at the back door. "Looks good, " I say.

"Yeah, we catched soooo many BEES." She initiates the nightly epic, a libretto of battles and intrigue,  jars and jars and more jars of bees captured. "SO many, Mom."

"We only just caught seriously bald-face hornets," Jack joins in. He whisks by, a peanut butter jar under one arm.

"Momma, can I have a drink?" Myra lopes into the kitchen. She wrestles open the third drawer on the left. I scuff dried oatmeal off a dish, then toss it in the dishwasher, again. Myra plucks a beryl blue bowl from the cacophony in the drawer. "Mom, can I have a drink," she says, bowl clutched to her chest.

"Yes." I frown at three spoons and a butter knife, dishwasher dregs dried and flaking off. I toss them back in the dishwasher. I glance at Myra. She blinks, grins as if her limbs were noodle-numb. Our eyes sync.

"Um, you may not use a bowl," I say. "Get a cup."

Blink-blink, "Oh. Ok."

The evening skitters on, sleep, finally, like a stone gliding over the water.

The next day, already in motion when I roust my tired self and woo her to wake, tumbles forward under my feet: an avalanche of moments. They clatter together like the engine of a porsche, perfect precision, music. I hold my breath, exhale, savor the adrenaline of spending myself.

"Mom. Mom," Myra charges, "I'm gonna draw a picture of you snugglin' with me." She waves a white sheet of paper like a victory flag. "It's gonna be perfect," she says. "I'm gonna work at my workstation."

We nod in tandem, me, silent for all the words tied up inside, breathless, mute, anchored there at the farm table with me. Her blue eyes alight and flutter, earnest orbs, love.

If a swagger can be completely void of vanity and instead just fullness of heart, a swelling with each step -- she swaggers off as if the motion of the day were inside and spilling out at each stride.

I trace the stride with my eyes, memorize the happy purity, the wholeheartedness. Like a stocking snagged from toe to top, I am undone. The knots slacken. The day contracts and fractures my relentless pace.

Gratitude:

4814. Joe starts walking.

4815. Purple running jersey. Need I say more?

4816. Barn spider, belly bigger than the old steely marbles.

4817. Cucumber grape salad with coconuts and pecans.

4818. Art lessons. The kids draw cinnamon-sugar donuts.

4819. Purple yarn.

4820. Almond filled croissants.

4821. Miss Jamie. We pray for Miss Jamie. She wakes up from her brain bleed and begins recovery.

4822. Sign language, and the garden.

4823. The children balk at regular chores, so we skip Saturday recreation and host a family work day. The children cry with anticipation. They sulk. They blame. They sandbag. And they finally rise to the occasion. On wings of endurance, the day soars. And though they miss lunch, they miraculously thank Jesus for the wonderful day working together.

4824. Another chalkboard. Craig makes our schoolroom complete with another green chalkboard. Then he hauls out an old vanity and bumper pool table that never really fit quite right.

4825. A friend offers him tickets to the WSU game. Seats on the 40 yard line, Craig and a buddy take theirs sons to the game.

4826. I fetch some canning jars downstairs and return to find Joe eating out of the butter dish.

4827. Peach rum sauce, boiled and candied to perfection.

4828. I visit with an acquaintance, but shrink inside when she talks down to her husband. I wonder what I should say to her.

4829. I peek in on Lucy. She hums while she dresses her babies.

4830. "I like your face when you smile like that," Myra says and points to a photo of me.

4831. She chooses a blutterfly sticker for her chore chart.

4832. "Jesus, please make us love you more every year, every season, every month, every week, every day, every hour, every minute, every second. Amen," Jane prays before bed.

4833. "Jesus, please help Mrs. Short's cancer to get healed. And, please help us to be able to tell other people about God," Lucy prays. "Amen."