She Laughs at the Days

He turns around to face me in the grocery store and exclaims loudly. "I look a lot different from everyone else in this store I bet. More like someone European from a long time ago I guess."



He is undisguisedly gleeful about this fact.

He has no desire to fit in.

I love that he so joyfully fails to conform, all the time. I love that he's far enough removed from all the pettiness of childhood peer groups to think the whole thing is just silly. He rarely, if ever, worries about what other people think of him.

It makes me swell with pride when another kid's dad takes the time to tell me that my kid was painstakingly honest in telling him what happened, even when he is at fault. I know he can't sleep at night if he has been dishonest, not telling a lie, because he hasn't, yet, that I know, told one. No, he hangs back after a week of not sleeping well to tell me, with tears and hesitations, of things done in secret. Because butterscotch chips pilfered from the pa…

When you go places with 4 children people notice, and they look for something to say. Some parents I know are offended by the comments. I see it as a way that others try to connect with what they see. Someone feels the need to observe to me, "You have your hands full!" Every time I leave the house. For about a year now I have replied by saying, "It's better than empty."

Yesterday at Costco, we were killing time in the store while our tires were replaced. The kids were playing in a demonstration play house right in the middle of the store.

He was passing by, stopping to look at the laughing children and placed his hand on my elbow, leaned in close to say, "You have your hands full."

"Better than empty," I replied with a smile.

What happened next surprised us both I think as his eyes began to water and his voice got tight. "I envy you with all my heart," he said.

Then I had to look away and back at my kids with a new weight of gratit…

My dad came to visit last week from Canada, for the first time in 3 years!



Aaron was out of town for most of it but that didn't stop us from packing as much fun into last week as we could.


After a weekend of shows, the Boy was in a local performance of The Jungle Book, we went camping at the beach. I recommend always going camping in the middle of the week if you can. It's so much quieter. We practically had the whole place to ourselves.




This little wood folding chair came on every camping trip I remember as a child. My dad is still bringing it on trips and now my kids are sitting in it.

There is a huge amount of conversation on my post at blogher, you may remember it, about my choice to stay with Bam Bam instead of take off for a few days for a birthday party. Among the many other themes in the comments are those women very kindly warning me that if I devote all my time to my kids now I won't know what to do with myself once they grow up and leave home, and I will be a shell of a woman who lives a life of regret for the career I never had and the friends I abandoned in favor of my family who will leave me one day anyway.

"You must take care of you", they tell me, "apart from being a mom and wife, etc."

This reminds me of another post I was going to write a long time ago about the angsty days at the end of one's teens and beginning of early adulthood when I wondered who I really was and wished I could just figure it out so I could know what to do with my life after that.

I think the two subjects are related, at least in my mind. I hope you …

Aaron's youngest sister turned 19 yesterday. So we had a midweek excursion to Beema's house to celebrate.

Pretty

The drive to Beema's house.



And all the flowers in her yard.



Happy

BamBam in the swing.


The trampoline.


the wagon


Funny

I told Ana to smile as she cut her cake and she made faces instead.



Real

This boy gets into everything now. I spend all day hauling him down off of things.



Also, this is posting from my phone because my laptop is getting repaired and I can't arrange the photos as I'd like to.

Also real, I hated how it looked so badly I edited the first chance I got. Maybe a bit OCD.