She Laughs at the Days

The other day the Girl found an empty popsicle mold and after trying for a while to get me to make her some, she resorted to pretending to eat popsicles that she pretended to make. While I cleaned up after lunch, she happily offered us pretend popsicles and then watched us like a hawk to make sure that we ate them and they didn’t get discarded on the rug and make a mess. Okay I’m making that last part up, she’s two, she doesn’t care if imaginary popsicles melt into the carpet leaving permanent red stains, just that we are playing along. “Here momma, popsico.” I pretend to take it from her outstretched hands. My hands must always touch her hands or I haven’t really taken it from her yet. “Oh thank-you,” I say and go back to wiping. “NO MOMMA, EAT IT!” I obediently make the appropriate slurping sounds into my hand. She and the Boy giggle and eat their pretend popsicles while I enjoy the bliss of a moment’s peace after a morning of needy, pants grabbing, whining. “Mommy I’m hun

The Boy is four. He is sweet, and smart and very coordinated. The Girl is two, and really is the cutest girl you’ve ever seen. The Boy likes to play fighting games that involve wrestling and swords and shooting pretend guns. He likes to run and jump and climb and make loud noises and pee on trees and run around naked, everything a boy is like. The Girl likes to put on clothes and take her dolls for stroller walks with a purse hanging off of her arm and a hat or collection of hats on her head. She also likes to run and jump and climb and tries her best to keep up with big brother. Who do you think is braver when it comes to real pain? Yesterday the Boy came limping into the house. “I have an owwee mommy.” We sit him down and look at his foot and sure enough there is a big thorn stuck into it, not deeply, I could have grabbed it with my fingers and pulled it out in a second. When I tried he screamed and cried and fought and pulled and yelled in terror at the approach of my fingers, or

The Boy and his aunt K were walking to the store the other day and they found an almost dead hummingbird on the ground. It had flown into a window and blood was coming out of its beak and it wasn’t moving. K picked it up to move it to where it wouldn’t get stepped on and showed it to the Boy. He wanted to know if it would die and she said it probably would and then it occurred to her to try praying for it. K prayed for the bird, and then the Boy did, and then it woke up and grabbed K’s shirt and clung to it for a while. She eventually put it on a bush so they could go into the store, and when they came back out the Boy went running to see if it was still there and it flew up in front of him and away into a tree. He was so excited, cavorting, jumping, exclaiming, “We prayded for it and God HEALDED it. That was SO COOL!!!”

Frustrations are just part of my life these days, everyone has them. Mine are of the living at my in-laws way out in the suburbs without a car or fast internet and trying to find a house to buy and get things done and raise my children variety. When I say way out in the boonies I mean 20 minutes of freeway driving to get to the nearest grocery store. Oh wait, there is the apple market, which is only ten minutes away on a state road, unless you hit it at the wrong time of day and then it can take an hour crawling forward an inch a minute staring at the back bumper of the car in front of you. Not that it matters much, I don't have a car to drive, my husband takes ours to work. And I don't really have to buy groceries, someone else does that. I guess the primary frustration is the lack of routine, different food in the pantry, needing to ask someone else to get things for me and to do things I'd rather do myself, borrowing my husband's parents' car when I need to go ou

My mother in law has beautiful breasts. You may be thinking that I am being euphemistic and sentimental, reflecting on the 8 children she has nurtured and fed at them, including my husband, the occasional time when she has offered them to a fussy grandbaby when I have been out and they have needed comfort, and other applications of the word beautiful, but I'm talking purely about aesthetics. This woman is over 50, did you catch the part where she breast fed 8 children, and her breasts look better than I think mine ever have, and I just turned 29. They are perky, they look great under a spandex workout tank that she wears around bra less with the impunity of a 15 year old. I haven't been able to go bra less since I was 13. I was a DD when I got married, I had babies and moved up to an E cup. My husband would, carefully, joke about having to look near my knees to find them after each baby. But give me another 20 years and he may not be joking, I definitely don't expect them