While John made supper, I sat on the grass and watched this little old man shriek at the birds flying to and from the eaves of our home with food for their young.
And here's a moving picture of the same, which includes a powerful display of her language abilities. 'OOK! 'Ird! 'Ommy! Plaaaaay. (That first one sounds more like a squeaky shriek when she's excited, though.) And I'm not at all sure why my voice sounds like a six-year old's.
I let Millie play outside while the two younger girls were napping, but when I hadn't seen or heard her for a while, I walked outside to ensure that all was well. It was. She was finishing the last chapter of The Littles, and although she doesn't know it, seeing her read chapter books makes my heart leap. She has done so well in spite of my failures this year, and I don't feel guilty about not rigidly scheduling school before Buster arrives, which is a huge relief right now. I'm still planning on finishing Saxon 1 with her by summertime, but we skip the excess repetition that maddens her, so it shouldn't take long. We're almost to the other side of kindergarten! Though I'd like to do some low-key art, music, and science (i.e. nature walks) over the summer, may the days yet stretch long and lazily to September and all the towering--for greenhorn me-- new subjects that first grade brings with it.
It's been a good year, with my beginner's mistakes and frustration all strong-armed in the end by the joy of learning something new. It's brought a new taste to our days. I think I like this home education circus.
* Scoff at my grand plans to continue a bit of education over the summer if you'd like, but a few days ago we picked up a nice keyboard, stand, and karaoke machine from someone's curb, and we're in the beginning stages of learning how to plunk out sounds that may even someday be recognizable as music. Hoo boy- is it ever beautiful to hear! God bless our neighbors as they stuff cotton in their ears...
**Millie still sports her post-picnic moustache. Classy.
Just because Annika needs video documentation in a day's posting that includes footage of both Millie and Susannah, here she is explaining why she sucks on each graham cracker.
I think I'll arrange for a unicorn visit immediately following Buster's birth.
A few days ago, Millie was tenderly cradling a baby doll in her arms. She proceeded to stuff the doll under her shirt to nurse her because, well, the doll was hungry. This, for some reason, made me think about diapers, and how newborns have a dozen dirty diapers a day. I shared the fact with Millie, who replied, "Oh, not my newborn! She only has one dirty diaper." I barged ahead in my lost cause by explaining that so many dirty diapers simply means the baby is healthy. Millie again had an answer. "Oh, my newborn is healthy, too!" She paused for a bit and then continued, "You see, right after she was born, a magic unicorn came to visit and made it so she only has one...or sometimes two...dirty diapers."
Something tells me that a boy wouldn't come up with such a lovely and convenient solution to stinky messes, but, hey, I'll take it.
The latest sonograms have shown little change in the placenta's placement, and the vessels are still stretched across. I talked to my doctor about pushing the c-section later to 38 weeks, which he was willing to do, given the smallish size of my babies who've been born a week and a half late. If there are no complications before then, and if God chooses not to move the troublemakers up and out of the way, then we've got just over a month before we meet Buster! Lord willing, however we meet our baby, all will go well. (Hope springs eternal. My due date is technically July 4th, and even as I sort through baby clothes, I'm still hoping for a natural delivery sometime in mid-July.)
We have rabbits who hop about our yard, impatiently waiting for someone to plant the garden so they can nibblingly skim all the cream of our crop. I only have one picture of this innocent-looking Peter Rabbit, but I'm nailing it to the post office door with a reward offer attached.
John's the best.
I haven't posted anything to buildabelly because I haven't been making much of anything, but today I posted a few offerings, most of which were made by him.
And lest you, like Rebecca, think that I only ever make fancy dishes, let the world know that when I'M in the kitchen, we have beans and rice and spicy meatless chili once a week, along with other lackluster dishes like plain ol' pasta, none of which ever receive the honor of their own post on the sticky web. Yup, boring.
Riding home from church, lying down with my head tilted up, I watched yards of lace pass overhead. The trees are awake again, and their lines sketch the sky with reds and greens and yellows. When I first noticed spring, the bare branches were hands lightly raising frothy orbs, but now the color has seeped downward and bolted through all the lower branches as well. When I was much younger I didn't understand why spring, which then seemed mostly mud and gray and endless waiting for school's shackles to fall away, would sent my mother into rapturous monologue. Now, feeling ages and not at all older than I was then, I know.
I haven't walked through woods and meadows to see what grows, but I can imagine what waits there, alive and hidden from view. The silver traces of birch now strikingly offset with green, fiddleheads not yet uncurled, the uncomplicated whites and yellows of bloodroot and trillium, and, if you're lucky enough to see him, Jack may sit in his pulpit, just waiting to be smushed.
Some colors are soft and subtle, all whispers and tendrils, and others so shocking in their vibrancy, one wonders if they think no one would notice their presence without that enjoyable assault on the senses. "We're here! We're here!" they shout with wild bursts of yellow, small explosions of pink. "Welcome us!" And I do.
The birds have returned to our bedroom wall and many more sing tirelessly outside. One in particular made me laugh out loud the other day, his call ceaseless and shrill with such obvious urgency that I wondered what he clamored about-- a bachelor unhappy to be so, flapping his wings and indignant at being repeatedly passed over for more handsome specimens.
I think of my children listening to me exclaim, as my mother did before me, heady with smells, sights, sounds-- all that should be familiar after a lifetime of seasons returning, but what remains uncommon and seems utterly new each year. Maybe they won't be as dull as I was, and will see the largess of spring rising up wherever one turns. I can't imagine it otherwise, as they run indoors to announce in great excitement each newly sprung dandelion, violet, or lilac bud readying to burst. The table has already held a dozen cups filled with motley color wrenched from our yard. Next year, Lord willing, when Buster is safely out and I'm allowed to explore again (and with Buster in tow) they'll uncover yet more, and I, too, will taste that rampant delight.
I'm 29 now.
Twenty-nine
Ain't I fine
One more year
'til my decline.
(Give me some slack. That was completely spur-of-the-moment, like beat poetry without the beat. Or the poetry.)
We spent a wonderful day together. As my gift, John hauled boxes of books out of our closet that he's stored since last summer and took them to the Phoenix to sell. This may not seem like much, but they've been a thorn in my mildly domestic side for nearly a year, and now they're gone. Hurrah! Then, without having planned to, we drove to Syracuse and walked around the Carousel Mall. We didn't spend money there, but we did enjoy reading comic books.
This is where we spent some book money-- the Dinosaur Bar-b-que, a biker's barbeque haven. Susannah was shocked at all she saw.
And then we drove home in the sunny evening, hair wind-whipped and bellies full of pork.
The fact that I have only three pictures from a day of birthday living speaks the facts. We enjoyed each other's company for the first day of my new year, a year in which I hope for many more moments that are too fine for cameras.
One balmy day, we went to the crick.
Threw rocks, explored promising cracks, dipped toes...
And filled Susannah's boots with water to dump them over other people's heads. (To be fair, Millie sprang a bootful on Annie first, so Annika was justified in retaliating.)
After this, they laid their bodies down for full-immersion soaks. Spring stopped by, and there was much rejoicing.
She did reach dizzy whirls and spins eventually, but only after I told the other two to slow down and let her on board.
And here Bird squints at birds, a favorite pastime.
