she has the smallest face, the littlest curve in her nose. in the sun her hair glows golden and messy. she likes to run, run fast and free and long. she is too smart and too spunky. she puts her arms around my neck and i feel strong and small and motherly. she sings all day long, singing and singing, singing nothing and singing everything. i like her.

he is tall, so much taller and broader of shoulder than before. his skin white and more freckled than before. he has the widest sunny smile when he’s sunny. he is crazy most of the time, wild and even wilder. he still brings weeds in the house to me, interesting bugs, a shiny sliver of glass. he asks the most questions, questions stretching out like a dusty desert highway. i like him.

his eyes are green, the greenest green when he’s standing in the grass. tall and strong. he likes to talk to me, hours of talking he’d clock if i remembered to stop the mundane of my doings and let him. he can make jokes that are really grown up and funny. his laugh and the upward turn of his lips are magical. i like him.

there are days i forget this stuff, the universes inside that spin them into a star studded orbit. golden glowing singing hair, wide smiling freckle face, green as deep as the darkest magical deep. my greatest human struggle may be the forgetting of these, and the constant remembering of ugly words, actions, need stretched out on a laundry line from here, there, back again, and again.

tonight they sleep, stretched out long and summery, fans blowing, dreams glowing, littlest curve, broad shouldered, upward turn. the pup sleeps in the kitchen, a long sigh sent my direction when i pass through before bed. ernie works, i work, the day works on the night to tidy things up for a new tomorrow.

this weekend we met the neighbors (who are great and have dogs and swear they don’t think we’re too loud), ernie mowed the grass, the kids and i put some plants into boxes and felt a great sense of hope, ernie set up the wii, ernie and i went on a date to a party, we all went to an indian buffet for mother’s day, i took an extraordinarily long nap (super awesome), and just kind of hung around with each other and did nothing overly productive. i think those weekends may be the best because they make the work of mondays easier to take a deep breath and jump into. maybe not.

the post-move discovery of the wii is a good babysitter, i’m only a little ashamed to admit. she doesn’t yell at the kids when they go nuts, doesn’t show them inappropriately scary you tube videos, and is extremely cheap on an hourly basis. when the school is done and people have gotten sweaty outside and done a few chores, the wii keeps the kids happy and mama can get her work done, which makes her happy. unsubscribe from this blog if you must.

this week we’re practicing piano, grilling foods on the grill, drinking iced coffees forever, planting fedco seeds that came in the mail, working on projects when it’s quiet and dark and night, eating baked beans, reading the hobbit, finishing spelling books, buying new swim trunks, hard boiling eggs, vacuuming the floor and going to the doc for a 24 week baby check up. it won’t be long now. we’re ready to meet this kid, though i’m sure this kid doesn’t have any idea what she’s/he’s gotten into.

strawberry limeade
cold by night
boys digging old asphalt from the future former driveway
mushrooms at the park
empty parks
new bird feeder from grammy
waiting for good mail
finding something on my “look for” list at the thrift
clean bathroom
clean pup
clean kids
lola sounding out words

the house feels settled. we invite people for dinner. thanks to my generous husband and some familial donors we have a new rocking chair to rock the baby. its arrival was my primary motivation for cleaning the house yesterday. it’s pretty much the perfect rocking chair and i can’t believe we have one.

raining today, last night. the yard a muddy cool mess for kids to tromp about. i think about bread baking and nap taking on days like today but there’s too much else to be done.

jude spots a mouse in the laundry room, i hear a dog get hit by a fast moving car but can’t catch her to help her, we read in the night kitchen and pierre, there is egg curry for dinner, ice cream crammed into cones after, the kids are mosquito bitten and dirty, there is late night coffee to work alongside, the mornings are too fast and bird early.

this weekend i caught up on work (all caught up, yay!), ate tacos at el molcajete after church, took a short and frequently interrupted nap in a hot, fanless room, drank at least a dozen iced coffees (so glad for a good use for the leftover french press again), listened to lola’s little choir sing and felt my heart burst a little bit at how super cute she was standing up there in her monogrammed shirt, got too mad at one of my kids for being crazy loud and wild during a sleepover, ate ice cream with strawberries, and made chore charts for the kids.

i didn’t give the dog a bath, wash any laundry, go to the store for milk or bread, watch any movies, visit any estate sales, or drink enough water.

i did think about getting a haircut, sewing a dress like this, read some gardeny stuff here and think more than a few times about making strawberry crisp.

this week: schoolwork, resisting that haircut with the extreme bangs, making shrimp and grits, painting lola’s fingernails, hanging some curtains, planting a few things, going on a date, putting away the winter blankets, watching leave it to beaver and/or macgyver with the kids, and prolifically drinking limeade and/or iced coffee.

this week: the graduation of ernie’s brother, family all about, celebration indian dinner, hours cleaning the house for a short time of company. it was good, fast. there were eight kids spinning around this little house for a day and into night and it didn’t seem like so many. but just like that i’m a little behind on work, mobiles to make, more than even these.

ernie is gone overnight for a wedding. the house is hot, the dog smells hot. the kids were cranky all day from a very late night with cousins and the usual early morning. i fed them ice cream and pound cake, strawberries for dinner and the complaining stopped for a time. now they’re asleep, a whirl of ice and milk together with cold coffee, the fan spinning constant in the next room. a short return from a foggy land of weariness to clean the messy desk, patch jude’s jeans since we can’t find his only sunday pants, catch up on snipping away at things while cars fly by at intervals controlled by the lights, a saturday night with the pull of a super moon behind clouds bringing the faceless cars in tides one place, another.

hot now, almost summer, already summer if it weren’t for the still cool air breezing through by night, the trees still a little small of leaf, bright of green. time for summer drinks, fans, grilling the dinner outside, potato salad, popsicles in twos. we haven’t planted anything for a garden yet but there’s still time. it feels late. the refrigerator is full of clean, cut strawberries from a quick drive through mown grass fields and woods to pick them. the kids ran off, leaping over the rows in the fields and i filled the baskets.

may for a time, then june. then the projects lined up and overwhelming me will lessen, we’ll go swimming, the baby’s water flips will be stronger, henry will tan, the rest of us will freckle, there will be fireworks, picnic blankets, and if we start the garden soon we will eat tomatoes, torn basil, salt, olive oil in a pool beneath.

likeable

late after noon with the little french press
new shelves in the dining room
strawberries all day
most of the boxes unpacked or squirreled away
hard work
ultrasound with wiggling wee babe
cold by night, by morning
churchy helpers yanking the horrible holly hedge from the front of the house
granola
egg rolls
late night cheeseburgers
roses all wild in the yard

warm for days, sunny, hot in the window places. cold coming in by night, curtains a slow billowing in curtain orbs, sinking back in close to the screen, out again, in. nighttime coughing, daytime working, coffee for hours, poured over, hot and perfect. jude asks for potting soil. lola asks for big daddy. we plan on friday night, saturday afternoon. ernie plays his trombone, dishes are done.

a holy week, a good friday, a risen sunday. jesus in scars, in shining white. holier than the usual holiness of days, holier than the meditations in the folds of towels, the redemption in upward waves on new spring leaves, the need in a clockwork stream of cars on the gray stretch of road.

in love with

muddy kids taking baths each night. or afternoon.
jude’s teepee
unpacking things i forgot we had
dishwasher of dreams
central vac
clean sheets pulled tight
stirrings of the baby
morning sun
late afternoon slanting sun
having a dining room
sherlock homes on netflix
the weirdness of lana del ray’s fingernails
chipotles in adobo sauce
a new-to-me junk shop called shinola (though it ruins the thrill of the thrifting hunt)
the exhaust fan, pulling in the cold night air
this writing
these photos
the idea of making and drinking this. right away.