Love is bruschetta.

Troy's excitement for our new little garden has been contagious. I was, at first, excited about the idea in theory. The tired part of me was a little more wary. He's been gravitating to it, weeding, watering, tending in general. I'm starting to realize if I notice Troy missing, I can probably find him in the garden.
As our peas and cucumbers climb their way up their little trellis, it reminds me of being a kid. Running across the lawn to the raised beds, eye level with the vines, choosing from the ripe sweet peas to snack on. Washing a handful of little carrots. Scouring the raspberry bushes, gingerly stepping between them, nervous of snakes or mice lurking in the hay, being pulled at by the thorns, looking for the hidden spots with the biggest undiscovered berries. It makes me happy.
We've been watching our little herbs grow, realizing we're not really sure what to do with them. The other night Troy was running around, obviously working on something. YouTube/Google to the rescue and he was on his way to the garden, back soon with our first little harvest. We looked at it on the counter, at each other, and I couldn't help but giggle. Now what do we do with it?

I continue on with the evening, bedtime, baths, jammies, books. One trip through the kitchen and Troy holds up his blender, revealing heavenly pesto beneath my nose.

Later, I'm snuggling on the couch with Clairie, the little girl who wouldn't sleep that evening, and Troy emerges from the kitchen, a platter of bruschetta in hand, rivaling any I've ever had. I love that man.

Happy Day

Tonight, Troy and I were working together on renovating the bathroom. After many months, it turns out there is a light at the end of our bathroom reno after all! It's now quickly looking like a vision realized. Thane surveyed it today after I had gunked out the reno clutter and sawdust, and said, "This is going to be a lot fancier bathroom. And it won't have that wall that keeps falling off!" It's true, the sad little bathroom we now occupy has a shower wall that is nailed up. It's served it's time. Who cares about fancy, we'll just take walls that stay stuck!

In our usual roles, Troy was installing something and I was painting. We had had an energetic, busy, fun, and productive day, had just put the kids to bed, and were putting in a couple hours on renos before we planned to settle onto the couch with some icecream. It reminded me of the first few months here at the house, when we were spending our evenings working upstairs on the kids rooms. At the time, Claire was about the age Max is now, and we were full of energy for this 'project house'. Max had not even been imagined yet. Fast forward to a couple years later, and I feel like we're getting our pace going again. With the onset of spring and sunny days our spirits and energy have lifted too.

At our last house it seemed to take about five years for it to really feel like our home, with our spaces truly adjusted to suit us the way we liked. We're almost three years in here, and I feel like I am starting to see spaces being carved out around us, signs of it becoming the home we've been hoping for, working towards, that my on again off again love affair with this house has been refueled. I remember standing with Carolyn on the landing at the top of the stairs here, before any of the inside work had began. What is now the boys room still had yellow walls and yellow carpet, flowered in maroon. It was the first time Carolyn had seen the house and she was excited about it with us. She loved the feel of the old house too. She said "In five years you'll think back on this and it will be amazing to see what you've done with it."

Today, even the tiny muses were on key. Pleasant and helpful, happy kids who liked each other. We slept in, we played, we cleaned and worked, ate yummy things. Thane and Seth are getting so good at their chores, or just better at not fighting about the chores, it makes me feel like we're doing something right. An encouraging pat on the back. They emptied and filled the dishwasher, gathered dirty clothes, emptied the compost bucket, took the garbage down, changed beds, Seth even went out to gather some reno garbage in a bag for me and Thane sorted laundry like I had just taught them the other day. It made me happy, mostly that they did it happily. All four kids must have played in a pile of blankets on the trampoline for an hour. Claire was even graced with a China snuggle, a feat for a kitty who's had a rough month. As Seth put it, she's recovered well but "still working on her braveness". They had turns getting rides on their little four-wheeler, and Thane and Seth practiced driving. This evening Thane, in an effort to get the little kids to bed so Troy could play a game with him, helped Claire with her jammies and brushing her teeth and read Seth a bedtime story.

This is my littlest helper in training. Doing his own laundry. (I'm expecting thank-yous from future wives.)

It was a day for the memory bank, a refreshing easy day to recall on those days that are difficult.

When I snuggle Max lately, he'll put his cheek on my shoulder, twist his fingers in my hair, and sigh, "Me happy."

A day like today, and that there seem to have been so many more of them lately, and closer together, makes me that Max sigh-worthy happy.

Her superpower is dancing

In perfect timing, the muses have been amusing in full force.

Seth tripped the other day, on his birthday. He said, "Oh sorry. It's my first day in my new seven year old body. I'm not used to it yet."

~

Thane came inside drying his tears of laughter and pointed at Claire, who was dancing her custom freeform style on the deck (Troy says she's watched too much lyrical dance). She's a free spirit, that one.

Thane, between giggles, told me, "She said her name is Sarah and her superpower is dancing."

~


Unfortunately I've only remembered a couple of the hilarious highlights. I'll keep you posted.

Broken hearts

Oh Carolyn. We miss you.

It hurts to watch these little hearts around me as they experience death, growing older and sober in that knowledge; that sometimes things aren't going to be okay. I don't want them to know this. I don't want to know this. I want them to stay tender, and hopeful, and trusting that the adults they love have infinite superpowers and invulnerability. We can't explain away that you can lose someone you love so much, that there is no constant you can depend on. The world seems scarier, even to me.

It's hit me like a brick lately, this fear that no one's exempt. Not even me, or my beautiful babies. I just want to sit and hold them, just in case.

I find myself rating every moment's worthfulness, or lack of. Getting incredibly frustrated if it's not something worthy of my time that now seems so incredibly precious.

I feel like I need more time, more than ever. I feel like I'm wasting it.

I miss talking to her. Her non-judgemental, forever positive words. I still take mental note of the cute things the kids say to relay to her, think automatically, "Oh, Carolyn will like that one" when I get a cute picture of them. It takes me a minute to think of someone else to call when I'm washing dishes or folding laundry in a quiet moment. Especially when I need a pep talk, the 'you're doing okay mama'. She was good at that.

We still need her, and Carolyn deserves to be here. I'm still mad and stuck on it not being fair. She was too young, too positive, too much of a light in our lives to be gone. She had just raised her kids, just finished the hard part, this was supposed to be her sit back and enjoy time. She deserves that part. So does Troy's Dad. They were supposed to have that together.

I just want to fix it, and there's nothing I can do. I can't make the hurt go away for any of us. I can't protect the kids, or Troy, or his family from going through this, I can't even protect myself from this. I can't keep their little hearts whole and protected. I would like to take my own off my sleeve and box it up for a while.

It hurts.

Troy's away this week and I miss him. He's my person. I need him. What if I ever lost him? He's on a trip with his Dad that seems to have really brought all of this up again fresh.

Our cat got hit by a car this week, although we think now she may make it. I found her waiting for me on our porch when I got home from work Thursday evening. I keep wondering how she got back, picturing her struggling to get home, trusting that we would help her. Her little broken self is at the vet for the weekend, they're worried she might not eat. She has five broken ribs, two of those in two places, a broken leg bone, and a collapsed lung lobe? She's a little eight pound bundle. Apparently this stuff can fix itself, as long as she eats. Regardless, I can't handle any more death. I can't handle any more death dealt to my kids. She has to be okay.

Why can't we just will it so?

Words

Claire says 'yogalet'. That means yogurt. 'Teerios and yogalet' is a request for cheerios and yogurt.

Her new saying is 'Seriously.' Which is seriously hilarious. Except it's 'Ceewuswee'.

Even at 6, Seth has held onto his habit of saying 'for' instead of 'because'. As in, 'I need my mittens, for it is cold outside'.

I love these little words, these little quirks in their growth to speech. Even while you're teaching them along the way, reading, repeating, modeling the 'right' way to say these things, it's still almost sad to see these little words disappear.

This morning, as he was getting his diaper changed, Max was watching Claire struggle with opening the door. "An oen de dohwah", he says, shaking his head no and pointing a chubby finger at his big sister.

That was 'She can't open the door'.

Max is my earliest talker. It's sooo lovely. After three late talkers, causing much inner, 'What are we doing wrong?' turmoil, an early talker is a nice treat, an affirmation that sometimes it has little to do with us. They all have their own timelines.

He repeats everything, and has been for months and months! Last night while reading a book he was on a roll, repeating all of the animal names the little elephant was looking for. Tiger sounded like Tierrr.
More is 'mooah' (complete with little chubby fingers signing it), all done 'all nun', ear 'eeyah', hair 'hayah'. Hot is a breathy 'httt', with expressive eyebrows pulled up and making the hot sign, palm out. It will still be a while before strangers can understand him, but in the meantime we're thoroughly enjoying it.

Sweetness.

Claire and Seth are too awake too sleep.

Seth had a nap at 5. Pm.

I have no idea why Claire is wound up.

I have a PILE of work to do this evening. So of course it's a good time for boomerang kids. And blog writing. It's a list of deadline's style pile, so it's been a 'Mommy's not in charge' evening while Troy took over.

I've been sitting at this dining table, at this laptop, while the household revolves around me through the afterschool, supper and evening rhythms. Kid conversations offering mini breaks, little partners offering company while they color beside me. Max talks about his 'bwuubewwies' as he eats. A kid is delivered to my lap for a bedtime book, fresh out of the tub, the best kind of softest sweet smelling kid.

As I type this evening, design banners, prepare for our upcoming exhibition among mulling over four other big ol' projects, I listen to these two. They're tucked in our bed, not far from the dining room, mostly to keep the racket away from the two upstairs who are sleeping, and because bedtime is always more enticing when it's in Mommy and Daddy's bed.

Seth tells stories to Claire. They leaf through books, him deciphering a lot of words, her filling in picture details.

He is sleepier than Claire, and tells her, "Claire, the clock says eight five two. That means we stayed up too long Claire." She quiets, then changes the topic. She talks in her 'baby voice', so I can picture her dolly being the puppet talking to Seth.

Seth parents, telling her she has to close her eyes and try to think about nothing. It always amazes me when I hear my words come out of their mouths. Apparently they do listen.

This evening, Seth came into the kitchen with a crib board, asking Troy to teach him to play. Troy says, "It's quite a hard game buddy, but I can try to teach you." Sitting down, fiddling with the little pieces and the enticing board, the lines of holes that look like a race track, Seth asks, "But, how did you learn to play Daddy?"

A pause. "Well. My mom taught me."

Seth is so perceptive. He is a little startled and scans Troy's face for the feelings attached to this sentence. It's so scary to talk about someone you love when they're gone.

Deep into the instructions, Seth's face concentrating on his little hand full of cards and trying so hard to lock in the details, and Troy says, "Now that's the first part of the scoring."

Seth looks up, concerned. "After this, can we play Go Fish?"

We laugh, Troy replies, "Yes. That sounds like a good idea bud." Seth lets out a sigh of relief.

This office has the sweetest view. 

Just because.