Where would we be without miserably cold and wet weather? Would bills get paid? Would coffee get reordered? Checkbooks get balanced? Would discussions take place about what may have happened if this or that? Would we make sure all emails were answered? Would we get creative about breakfast -- hey, how about eating it in the play room for a change?
It is the worst of bad weather May days and I am not terribly sorry. Sure, there are the weeds, the chipping needs. And Ed is itching to take down a huge tree that is threatening to crash down on the barn. But I need an excuse to stay indoors and the cold and wet walk to the barn this morning...
... convinces me that this day has given me just such an excuse.
Eventually I head out to visit Sandpiper. He's still a sleepy little guy. On the one hand, that's good: it makes for an easier transition from a family of four to a family of five. No one is complaining about the noise and interruptions that a baby usually brings into a household.
On the other hand, we can't merely strive to make our lives easier, smoother.
Raising a child isn't (only!) about keeping things quiet, but rather it's about confronting challenges together, as a family. So, we do a little more shaking and bouncing to get the guy to wake up a little. Here's a squinty tentative stare:
I pick up Snowdrop from school then and again we head straight home to her youngest sib.
She has already told Sparrow -- you know that Sandpiper is eventually going to follow you and want to do everything you do and insist on playing with you and your toys all the time? She speaks from experience. Sparrow can't imagine that just yet. He listens and looks at Sandpiper and weighs his future. He has to wonder -- could his sister be right? Could this small baby rise to the level of being a real pest? Nah...
I come home once again with a smile of appreciation about how beautiful life is always, but especially right now, where so much of the anxiety of this past year has receded for me and the good feelings just keep on flowing.
I must pay my dues though. It can't just be a couch day. By evening, the rain has stopped and I try to talk myself into that familiar northern European platitude about how there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad dressing for it. On goes an extra jacket. I weed the most horribly weedy new flower bed, then go in to cook up a big pot of veggie soup.
