presence and berries

anne just arrived home from spending 5 days with her older kids and welcoming a new grandchild into our world. congratulations, miller family! and little music, i can't wait to meet you!

i thought i'd come downstairs and write for a few minutes while anne and adah make a tent upstairs and pretend to be worms.

normally when the other mutha plans to go away for longer than a few days it incites a little bit of panic and immediate exhaustion. that, and adah and i start planning trips to indian restaurants, a cuisine that is not really of anne's liking. i have to say, though, that these past several days are among the best days bug and i have had together for awhile. not because anne was gone, of course, but for a couple other reasons: the luxury of unscheduled time, and the grace of real presence. this was the first weekend in months where we had absolutely nothing on the calendar. there wasn't one thing we had to do, and the whole world felt open to us. i highly recommend the whole world being open to you.

as a family we have had a ridiculously busy past few weeks (i know, redundant), and i've been missing slow time with bug. i've also become increasingly aware how much time i spend in internet land, and i made a little vow to myself to be 100% available to the little one, and to be present to her wacky whims and desires for the weekend. we had a fabulous time as a result. we talked about things that sounded fun (tacoma, swimming, crepes, hiking, library, etc.) but ultimately it was the strawberries that won.

we met a friend at sauvie's island and picked a couple of flats of berries. seul picked one of the flats, and when i asked her what she planned on doing with them, she said she had no idea, so i knew we would have a long night ahead of us. the strawberries were humungo and really sweet, so we had to do something with them right away or they'd get bad. a strawberry emergency is a good thing to have, however, so we stayed up until around midnight making jam and shortcake and plans for pies. on sunday there was a lot of licking of fresh whipped cream on beaters, and strawberry shortcake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. this makes for a happy kid and mom. just wait until tomorrow when we're back to millet and lentils.

but beyond photonutrients, this is really all just to say: thank you, adah, for making my whole world so happy. you make my heart hurt.

that, and happy birthday jojo. :)

may pics; staple removal; still can't wait for summer

if you'd like to see more pictures from the month of may, click here. i promise you'll find color there.

in other news, bug got the staple removed from her head this afternoon. anne's co-worker told her that the removal is usually much worse than the going in, so i opted to stay home and let the calmer one of the mama pair handle the experience. it went better than expected. in adah's words, "it only took like 2 minutes!" they waited a long time, which was the worst of it. anne noticed that lots of later-arriving people were getting called in before them, so she went up and asked what that was about, which was probably all the staff vying to take care of any other patient than a potentially volatile toddler with a staple in her head. when they got in, the procedure was once again quick and easy, and the nurse asked, "how old is she again?" and then "really?" more skipping through the parking lot, i assume, and a staple in a ziploc bag as a souvenir, which they stopped to show grandma on the way home.

***

the strawberries are officially ripening, and bug and i have a morning countdown. the first thing she asks upon waking in the morning, all pretzeled up next to me is, "do you have to work today? do you have to work tomorrow? how many days until summer?