"sometimes the little things become big things..."

i remember my midwife telling me this in the first weeks after caleb was born. she was referring to those things--those seemingly simple things--that become, once we have children, not-so-simple anymore. things like finding time to take a shower. things like actually clipping the toenails of both feet in the same sitting.

frankly, anything that requires more than one step and more than two minutes is probably not going to get done for a while around here, if at all. which is why i have not blogged in almost a year, and why everyone in my household is perpetually wearing dirt-stained, mismatched socks and wrinkled clothing they dug out of a laundry basket.

i'm a little ashamed to admit this, but what the hell: with the blogging, the pictures hang me up, not the writing. i just can't seem to get it together enough to find that cord that attaches my camera to my computer; download the pictures; find my favorites; figure out how to process them using a photoshop-for-idiots knockoff; dig through a sea of photos to select the one that perfectly suits my post; and, finally, upload it, all the while fending off two chimpanzees who disguise themselves as little boys--chimps who would like nothing more than to get their lollipop-sticky fingers all over my camera and computer and accomplish with stunning mastery wholesale, irreversible and expensive destruction within the span of about 45 seconds.

why don't i blog at night after they've gone to bed, you ask. and to that i respond, simply: "please." the only thing i want to do after those beloved primates go to bed is sit on my couch semi-comatose, watching mindless television, drinking chamomile tea and reminding myself that, truly, these are the good ol' days.

sometimes i go to bed at night--more nights than i care to disclose--feeling guilty about this blogging situation. not because the cyberworld is missing out on my self-indulgent ramblings, but because my boys' childhoods are careening past me at light speed, faster than i have the presence of mind to truly appreciate most days, and damnit i just want to capture some of it before i forget it. and i want to give these memories to them one day, so they can perhaps see themselves as i do: whole, blameless, completely good, infinitely loveable...

so today, after a guilt-ridden and unsuccessful nap, i got up and decided i would just. post. something. forget uploading a picture. forget using capital letters. forget proofreading. forget trying to get it just right.

forget perfection.

just do one little thing. do it messily, imperfectly, and with complete mediocrity. but, for god's sake, just do it.

summer around here

The gardenia bushes almost didn't make it through the winter, but they've put forth their white deliciousness anyway, scraggly branches and all. (You gotta admire that.)

And the blueberries were sweet. All four of them. (Hey, you gotta start somewhere, right?)

Eight sweet pepper bushes. One pepper. (It's better than none!)

The tomatoes are sweet and lovely. But not if you ask Caleb. Caleb took one bite out of a cherry tomato--he was so proud of it, having come from HIS garden--and promptly threw up. (At least he tried it!)

The petunias have survived heat, drought, slugs and squirrel attacks. Resilient, those petunias.

The Crepe Myrtle (Is that how you spell it? I'm too lazy to look it up.) is divine--we set up the baby pool under its shade the other day. The boys were delirious. Then Caleb crapped in the pool and everything kinda went downhill, but it was a great four minutes before that.

My garden is still a place of healing, but more in a sweat lodge kind of way. We don't linger outside too much these days. If the heat doesn't getcha, the skeeters will.

The gourd plants have taken over. They're great! Their prolific, happy wide leaves, proud yellow flowers and zany patterned gourds are a delight.

And sunflowers. How can a gal be anything but happy with sunflowers in her yard?

the agony and the ecstacy

Hello, screaming tantrums! How very nice of you to visit. I really needed to have my eardrums rattled 17,000 times a day. I really wanted to feel brain damaged before 9 o'clock every freakin' morning.

The saving grace? Moments like this: I'm cooking dinner this evening and I overhear the boys happily romping around in the living room. There's a moment of silence, I peek in, and they're lying on the floor next to each other and Caleb sighs and says, "It's a beautiful day, Tavish..."

oh this man...

Be still, my heart. This picture undoes me every time I look at it. This is Jay, just shy of one year ago, standing at the altar waiting for me. That is the face of a man who knows the weight of what he is about to promise, of what he has already devoted himself to.

I love that face, those eyes--those brown-green eyes that held so much light as I said my vows, like a river at high noon in summer, all the rocks and fish shuddering in watered sunlight. I could not stop smiling that day--the kind of smile that sprouts in the warm pit of the gut and does not stop growing until it's blooming all over your face. I can still feel his warm hand on my back as we had our first dance. All my dreams were--and still are--coming true.

Happy (almost) Anniversary, my love. I'd marry you again and again.

the first lily and fireflies

The first lily bloomed in our yard today. I've been waiting for days. Every day I would think, "Today's the day..." but that bud just wouldn't burst open. Kind of like waiting to go into labor.

About a week and a half before Tavish was born, every night before bed my husband would say, "Maybe tonight's the night..." The night he was born, I was putting on my nightgown, my husband said his thing, and I said in a huff, "No, tonight is NOT the night. It will NEVER be the night. Apparently, I'm never having this baby." I was one day past my due date. And, as it turns out, IN LABOR; I just didn't know it (Don't ask--that's a post for another day). Oh me of little faith.

So this lily...MAN, I thought it would NEVER bloom. But she did! And isn't she glorious?

So while I admired and photographed our first lily as the sun was going down on a perfectly perfect evening, Caleb dug for worms the garden next to me. It would have been nice if the mosquitos hadn't been flying up my pajama pants and biting me to death the whole time. And I could have done without a shovel-full of dirt flung in my hair. But all in all, what an exquisite evening. Just as we were gearing up to go inside for "night-nights", the fireflies came out. Just a few; the first of the season.

Caleb can't say "firefly" for some reason. He can say "fire" and he can say "fly," but for the love of God he can't put the two together, bless his little fat heart. "Ooooh, hiiii, ladybuuug!" he would say when he caught one. "Firefly," I'd say. "Ooooh, hiiii, butterfly," he'd say. "Firefly," I'd say. "Butterfly," he'd say. Oh well. We sure did have a grand ol' time watching those ladybugs and butterflies light up. And all of them survived. Caleb has the gentlest touch sometimes.

I can't decide which was my favotite: the long-awaited bloom of the lily or the surprise of fireflies. Actually, neither. My favorite was my boy, my firstborn, my long-awaited surprise running about in the twilight with the firelies.

spring around here

My yard is, I've decided, a place of healing. All those blooms and all that green are like a long lost friend fresh off a red eye flight from a frozen continent who shows up unexpectedly on your doorstep one desperate, dark morning bearing brightly-wrapped presents for no particular reason at all, except that it just seemed the thing to do.

I walk around barefoot in the damp and warmed grass these days--all around me: azure and violet and crimson and buttercup yellow hugged by the shiny ribbon of emerald leaves. I am amazed how everything that was held hostage underground all cold, dark winter-long now breaks the soil, easily as breathing and unravels like a finally-loosened braid, like the silky ribbon of a corset.

Every morning a new delight has appeared from the soil. "Look!" my husband whispers some mornings, "I think the gourds and sunflowers grew an inch overnight!" Meanwhile, the birds rediscover the feeder and its bounty of seeds--they chirp and squawk and light upon the fence and bushes and finally on the dangling feeder that swings with their weight. Whatever darkness that happened in winter evaporates now, rising along with the vegetable garden's dew to a new sky.

The tomato and pepper plants are flowering; the blueberry bushes and squash and cucumber, too. Soon enough, they'll hand over their treasures, letting us hold hope in our hands, teaching us what resurrection tastes like.

overheard...

So we're sitting on the porch the other day. Caleb is sitting next to this plant. Spontaneously he reaches out and ever so gently cups a grouping of leaves in his hand. I watch on, perplexed, as he wiggles his fingers and turns his hand this way and that in the leaves. Then he whispers, "It's okay...I'll hold your hand."