When you've been busy all morning, and it's ELEVEN O'CLOCK and you still haven't made time to change out of pajamas, but you're not likely to anytime soon because now there's the complication of this sweetest sleeping bundle. More effective (and nicer!) than a pair of leg irons.
After Dad died, I looked through his collection of old calendars and tried to peer into his mind through the notes and doodles he put on certain dates. On the anniversary of my Grandpa Johnson's death, Dad had a bare notation-- "Dad"-- with a simple crying face. It sunk deeply, in part because of Dad's complex relationship with his father, and also because he was reticent to express this sorrow in words.
Ever since, in my planners, I've followed suit.
Yesterday was the day we marked Dad's exit from earth, and today is Sunbeam's due date. Death, life, grief, joy-- we get pieces of it all here on earth, sometimes jumbled all together.
I had a doctor's appointment today, ran (hobbled) errands for most of the day, and before I changed into scruffy work clothes to descend into the Basement of Horror and Doom, I asked Millie to take a few pictures of this baby still in belly, perhaps for the last time, on an auspicious day of rain and fog.
The light slants golden, and all the colors swell in one last hurrah. October has always been my favorite month, though now that I'm older, I can become heady on wind and wildness one day while dreading cold and dark the next.
Taking each day as it comes is better than craning down the path. Full-bellied as I am, perhaps for the last time, this advice serves well. Sink into the joys of each day and don't linger too long over the sorrows. Each new day will have its own.
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Any snapshot marked thus ** underneath was taken by Mildred. Yup. I stole all the best pictures from my daughter, but, hey, I haven't been picking up the camera much, but I still want shotsnaps to look pretty, so I do what I must.
Oh, we love her to bursting. As many times as I said that Skylark made the best last baby, I'm glad she's not the end of the line. Now she has the chance to vie for Best Big Sister Award. Soon!
Yesterday Lark turned three, and we started the day with her birthday breakfast. Piper, Luci, and Zeke had stayed up the night before and decorated the whole downstairs with paper chains, paper snowflakes, and garlands, and then they spoiled her with All The Attention until breakfast was ready, so she would have been flying high no matter what food we placed in front of her.
They even made her TWO birthday couches!
Anyone who knows John knows of his fervent love of tomatoes and his super-heroic ability to eat 15 pounds of raw tomatoes in one sitting. Skylark is his girl!
Video proof.
Lark's cake request was one of my favorites so far, and I posted that video so you'd understand why she asked for a pink cake with "peanut butter on the bottom and tomatoes on top." Oh, man. That's a flavor combination made in heaven! And dinosaurs. Of course dinosaurs.
Even though she was envisioning the real thing, I heard no complaints that the tomatoes were made from fondant. The cake and peanut butter filling were both peanut-buttery enough to satisfy.
She didn't even seem to mind that the dinosaurs were plastic,
...though she did rearrange them to her liking.
Then she had her happy birthday supper with Joel, Grandma J., Debbie & Rundy and the boys, followed by a pink peanut-butter-tomato-dinosaur cake. I can't think of a better way to turn three.
