Front Yard Veggie Garden
Handful of Stories
(Nice? Sorry, as a writer, I should definitely come up with a better word for the feeling, but that’s as good as it gets. In platitudes, may many layers be found.)
Today’s To-Do List
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Soccer in the park. Baking cookies, granola, and bread. Hamburgers and asparagus for supper. Family night (Bananagrams?).There’s been an interesting conversation going on about how a blog’s tone develops, especially these mommy-blogs, in which stay-at-home parents reflect on their daily lives; and I’ve noticed this blog has really changed since its inception. More photos. Less text. But also less complaining? Less detail, perhaps. I’ve begun to treat this space more as a scrapbook than a diary. But is it painting a picture of our daily lives that is too idealized? Does it look like we spend our days cavorting in puddles, our fronts dusted in flour, our minds peacefully occupied? Well, that’s ’cause we do.
Or, wait …
Blogland is nothing if not selective. And I like selecting the good stuff. Tantrums? Siblings whacking siblings? Last-minute-supper-prep-madness? Bathtime resistance? “I’m so bored.” Disturbed nights? Late-night glass of wine? Too much coffee? Warts, snot, burping, dirty diapers? Yup, we’ve got ’em, too. But I haven’t started photographing that stuff yet. Maybe I will. Or at least slip in a few views of the darker side of this lifelong adventure, just to balance things out. No promises, however.
It’s Raining, It’s Pouring
Tropical downpours turn our sidewalks into raging creeks. After supper, the older kids strip down and head out to do some puddle-jumping. Across the street, a fellow watching the rain from his front porch shouts, “Used to do the same thing when I was a kid in Newfoundland!”Painting Party
It started with a jolly walk home from school and ended with hammock battles, not on the agenda, and in between we painted a mural on the fence beside the play area, and chalked up the bricks, and devoured pizza, ate cake and jello and cool whip (yikes!) while swinging on swings and sitting in the play structure, and the boy turned eight. He really did. He’s a lovely boy and it’s so easy to be proud of him. He is warm-hearted, a true big brother, open to experiences, enthusiastic, who delights to eat just about anything, earnest, with the ability to focus deeply, sometimes bursting with energy, noisy, the noisiest child on the block sometimes, and yet, able to find calmness, too. He works hard, plays hard, sleeps soundly. I didn’t get any fabulous photos of him at the party, but here is one from this morning, just woken up eight-years-old, and about to open his first gift (from sister Fooey). It’s not a great photo either, but he looks like the boy I know so well.