• besties

    My husband and I went to a play last weekend. It was a gorgeous evening, so I made my older son take some photos of us before we left.

    My husband’s patience for photo taking is nonexistent, and my son clicks at anything that moves, so we ended up with a bunch of weird photos and some blurry shots of the sky, garden, and cat.

    “Why are we taking these?” my husband asked, waves of irritation radiating from his body.

    “Because,” I said. “Now kiss me.”

    “I’m not kissing you on camera,” he said.

    We get along a lot better than we used to. No longer do we debate the merits of daily vacuuming, and if he’s going to be late, he calls.

    ‘Course, we still can’t agree on what movies and TV shows to watch, we don’t have shared interests, and he doesn’t pick up on my carefully placed treat-me-please ideas, such as, “WHY DON’T YOU EVER BUY ME TWIZZLERS!” but, oh well. Such is life.

    Twizzlers aren’t good for me anyway.

    This same time, years previous: the quotidian (4.27.15), the quotidian (4.28.14), church of the Sunday sofa, better brownies, together.

  • full disclosure

    You know how I said that when I go writing I leave the big kids at home and it’s like I have live-in maids? Well, the cleaning doesn’t happen in the most professional of ways. I know this because the children thoughtfully document their shenanigans with my camera.

    Take, for instance, the day I told my older son to scrub all the screens in the house.

    Not the most productive of screen-washing methods, you can see.

    Full disclosure: After being twice-washed (so says the boy), the screens were still dirty and had to be redone later, but this time under the supervision of a scowling papa, no playing around allowed.

    This same time, years previous: mousy mayhem, roasted carrot and red lentil soup, creamed asparagus on toast.

  • an ordinary break

    It was a rainy afternoon. All the kids were at a rollerblading party, so I decided to get an early shower and settle in for a cozy evening. But just as I was stepping out the bathroom, we got a phone call. Our younger son had taken a spill, and our older son thought his arm might be broken. And on the one-year anniversary weekend of my older son’s bike wreck, too, you have got to be freaking kidding me.

    On the drive in to town, my husband and I discussed the chances that it was actually broken. “It’s probably just a sprain,” my husband said.

    “Nope, I think it’s a break,” I said. “They said he cried for a while, and he doesn’t cry unless it’s bad.”

    When we met up with the kids, I took one look at the arm, noticed it had a slightly wavy appearance, and was like, “Yep, we’re going to the hospital.”

    In X-ray, I could see the pictures as they popped up on the computer screen. I stared at the first one for a bit, admiring the clarity and detail, the perfectly intact bones in the hand. And then I noticed that one of the long arm bones had a smooshed spot, like two, jammed-together Oreos (if Oreos were shaped like pretzel rods) with the icing squishing out.

    How interesting, I thought, and to the technician I said, “That’s a break, isn’t it? Am I seeing that correctly?” And when she didn’t say anything, I said, “Oh, riiiight. You can’t say anything, can you.”

    “Yeah,” she said, grinning. “But you know what you’re looking at.”

    After that a physician’s assistant splinted the arm, fixed us up with Codeine-laced Tylenol (which we only used once), and sent us on our merry way. We’ll get the real cast later this week once the swelling goes down.

    Broken-arm boy has taken everything in stride. I’ve noticed he’s sleeping more than usual, but he’s cheery as can be and absolutely thrilled about getting out of washing dishes for the next few weeks. For all his spastic high-energy, he often reads for hours on end so I don’t think this little blip will bother him too much.

    You know, in seventeen years of parenting, this is our first ordinary break. In a way, it kind of feels like a rite of passage. Like I’m finally a real parent or something.

    This same time, years previous: thank you for holding us, taking off, Jessica, mango banana helados, beware the bedsheets, drama trauma, the perils of homemade chicken broth, rambles, shoofly pie.