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Autumn’s Bounty
Weekends in October in the foothills. They’re made for apple picking and BBQ eating. Good friends reclining on the porch. Boys with Nerf swords and whiffle balls crowding the yard. Catching up and checking in and stories of this and that. Sunshine and morning runs. Cinnamon rolls and chocolate cake. Potato soup and homemade salsa. Late nights and conversation and falling asleep while watching Parenthood. It’s a comfortable kind of weekend. Weather just right for the afternoon sun to feel like a warm embrace on bare arms. (But maybe a tad too warm for a corn maze at high noon with eight children and four grown ups and lunch on…
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night song to my boy
Lying in bed beside you. Your four-year-old hand resting in my forty-year-old one. Tiny voice. Tear-stained cheeks. And I love them both – voice and cheek. The door open to night breezes and stars glowing. You’re chattering. Pushing sleep with blinky eyes and your slow-down speech. And suddenly it’s quiet. Sleep has won. I close my eyes too. The stillness sounds like rain and the evening changes as rapidly as your speech flowed minutes earlier.
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better days.
Monday was not a stellar homeschool day. I had a schedule. (I’ve always had a schedule, but this year I have a planner – a spiral bound, blank squares across a page – kind of planner.) And I stuck to the schedule. At all cost. We didn’t finish school until four p.m. I made certain every tiny pencil-drawn square on my planner was checked off. We accomplished every goal – lofty or minute – which I had previously planned. All math. All writing. All science. All narrations. And no one in our house had a really great day. When I was vacuuming up the school room from the mess my…
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exactly.
I am so glad to live in a world where there are Octobers. – Anne of Green Gables
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conversing.
You press your fingers hard against your eyes. Pushing the tears back. Ten year old attempts at Holding It All In. Baby. Daughter. My sweet girl. You do not need to resist The Tears. The sadness. The thick feeling in your throat and the crumbly tearing at your heart. Feel it. Just feel it all. Remember when we talked about growing up? You listened. Quietly. Head nodding politely. Grimace, grin, crinkly face you make when my words splash into deep waters. Now you say to me, “Mommy – I think I’m having those things.” I lock my mommy eyes onto your daughter eyes with sympathy and love. “Those things. The…
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no. yes.
Silence. Crickets chirping. Blank screen. It’s been a while, my friends. It’s been a while. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with me and words of late. I’m tired. A touch of writer’s block, I suppose. Big things to think about – no time to process. We finally have two cars again. That’s nice. Kevin is moving his office upstairs at our house. The kids were asking what we would do with Riley’s room. I guess we know. Put an office in it for now. And it’s already October, for goodness sake. Also, there’s been this: Busy. Out and out preoccupied . Edited a novel in exchange for actual…
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The Final Forty Joins Us. In Florida.
It was a whirlwind drive. Florida to South Carolina Friday afternoon. (And back again in reverse Sunday afternoon.) And my phone’s battery died about an hour into the first morning and although we certainly had access to electricity, I had forgotten my charger and, frankly, I just didn’t want to carry my phone around. Page is a much better photographer than I am and I knew my weekend hours were very limited and I wanted to live them without the aid of King Solomon. Which is why this post is a wee bit shy on photos and why I am letting you know that I stole some photos from Gretchen’s…
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Here and there. A hodge podge.
This week is ending? What? I feel like I should sing that song, “it’s closing time”. Although I can’t remember any of it except that one line about “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”. Honesty, I haven’t thought of that song in years, but this summer at our annual July Fourth Pigg River tubing trip, Maggie reminded me. She said I used to sing it to the point of annoyance. I have no recollection of that. (I’m sorry Maggie that you do.) Isn’t it a little disconcerting how you can absolutely forget certain parts of your own life? I guess it’s time I should warn you. This…
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cue the laugh track.
Greetings from the Maybe She’s Our Funniest Kid files. “Hey, Mommy – doesn’t Otto look like Gerald?” Piper Finn called to me from the other room. “What?” I asked. “He looks like Gerald.” She was pointing at Otto. (Who, at the moment, looked like ……. Otto.) “Piper,” I asked. “Who is Gerald?” Piper’s hand went to her hip. She looked exasperated but explained mostly patiently, “Hark – the Gerald angel who sings at Christmas.”
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little man words.
One thing I love about kids in the mid-elementary school years …. their evolving, thinking brains. They’re just so clever and interesting. And they find the world around them new and intriguing. It’s all so glorious somehow. My nature-loving, full force, energetic eight-year-old boy came to me with a tiny piece of paper last week. He placed it in my hand. It was another poem. (This kid’s getting prolific.) And I think it’s really observant and lovely and inspiring and true. It reads … “Though the trees only wither in winter, joy comes again in the shape of the first bud.” If I was going to title this poem, I…
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Field Trip: The Carolina Honey Bee Company
Our Prairie Primer curriculum this year lends itself well to field trips. For various reasons I have not chosen to pursue every suggested field trip option. However, there are several field trip ideas that are just so handy, so nearby and so convenient, that it would be crazy to pass up the opportunity. Like the maple syrup store the week before. And last week – the honey store. For us – it was our friendly store The Carolina Honey Bee Company – located right here in Travelers Rest. All it took was a quick call and a simple question, “Can I bring my kids in for you to teach them a bit…
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and yet. all this stuff.
Kevin spent the first two weeks of September in another country. Riley will be spending ten months in another country. All summer we all knew The Trip was coming. Our summer was consumed with packing and repacking and weighing bags to be certain they didn’t surpass the 50 pound limit. (And when they did, trying to decide which items mattered least.) And then, suddenly, the day was upon us. Riley’s favorite breakfast of french toast was served. A trip to the airport was taken. Hugs and kisses and farewells and waves and deep sighs. And then the drive home. The house – with six instead of eight. And I think…
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Two weeks is too long.
I’m just so glad my husband is home. The end.
