where you feel like your eyeballs are all itchy and about to crack into gritty dust

I had wonderful, productive plans for the day. Instead, by the time we arrived home after the bike trip to and from Nels’ Homeschool Swim date, I was feverish, dizzy, and dissolving into a periodic but nasty cough.

 

Into bed for me, then. Now and then I rise to do a few chores, and fix a plate – before falling back into my fan-cooled bedroom and playing Hour Six-Million of some crime drama. Meanwhile my children enjoy the sun, their friends, and a trip to their grandmother’s for a movie date. Ralph mows the lawn, runs errands, prepares dinner, and makes an evening meeting.

So yeah – besides a few caring phone calls to friends, and some housework, and being loving to my family, I was shit-all useful today. But this afternoon I did have someone tell me that reading my blog helped her a great deal in taking the plunge to homeschool. That is a really wonderful thing to hear. No matter if my writing is crap or it’s okay or whatever, I pledge to continue as long as I can.

I keep thinking about a vacation. Somewhere sunny where we can swim. I am ready to swim in open water as long as it is clear water and there aren’t horrible weeds in there trying to murder my ass. In fact, now that I am such a strong swimmer, I can see how much I would adore snorkeling. I tell Ralph today, “I love just swimming and swimming and swimming and it’s only when you take the breath that it’s kind of a drag.” Now that is something I wouldn’t have guessed I’d think, a few months ago!

My daughter, this evening. She’s doing that thing where she keeps growing into the wonderful young woman she is:

 

OK.

*falls back into bed, weakly calling for popsicles*

is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment

I’ve spent so much of the last dozen years in near-constant company of children you’d think I find them quite unremarkable as companions; but in fact, they are a special type of experience to me, still. I often feel uncertain, and think I am supposed to be providing them more food, more cuddles, more baby-talk. However I have very little to offer on all these accounts – sometimes not much for my own little ones.

The girls visiting tonight are, as per usual, excited about our life and they explore it frankly. They areĀ enamoredĀ of our home; they enjoy my mother’s property next door, with the witchy garden and koi pool and fire pit. They are excited our children do not go to school and they are enthusiastic about Nels’ lemonade stand (he spent all day out there; cheerfully greeting, pouring, mixing – and when alone, singing songs and saying, “I’m a winner!” to himself).

In the evening Ralph leaves for a meeting and the four children and I venture out to our favorite little walk along the harbor. Within a few moments the younger sister N. sits behind me on my bike, completely at-ease with a grownup she’s never met before. She has a wicked sense of humor, very dry – a lot like my daughter. She is pretty in a winsome, Scout-from-To-Kill-A-Mockingbird type of way. Her sister is a real beauty, clouded blue eyes and long lashes and dark hair falling across her clear brow. They are very composed little girls and quite game to shift bikes back and forth when we are joined by another child on foot, woefully protesting the unfairness of not owning a bike. Phoenix, for the first time, rides my X with Nels on the back while I carry N. I feel a sting of pride. A little later my daughter rounds a corner too fast and ditches the bike too, falls right over although she and Nels are very good at dumping bikes without being hurt. Phoenix gets up and dusts off. “It’s not a maiden voyage of an Xtracycle if you don’t fall,” I tell her cheerfully; she brightens up.

The children know where to look for animals hidden here and there in the hot, muggy wetland – we find all sorts of creatures, including many centipedes criss-crossing our path, a long-toed salamander (rare for our area of Washington), and a small nest of nubbly purple-pink rodents. The children entreat me to take photos with my phone although in the case of the little baby nest, I don’t want to get too close.

Long-Toed Salamander

Rodents Of Generally-Expected Size

***

Back at home the visiting girls stay until the last possible moment before they’ll be late getting home. They keep asking about my sewing and my sewing room. Finally it occurs to me they might like some of Phee’s hand-me-downs. I step into the closet and begin pulling out this and that, garments my daughter has grown out of that haven’t found a new child. I hand over a few things then start straightening the hangers, lost a bit in preoccupied tallying of my children’s clothing needs. A moment later I turn to find one of the girls still standing, expectant, hoping for more magic to be pulled out of this dark and dusty little closet. The girls try on the garments and one of them, the older one, brightens up considerably at Phee’s leopard-print-and-lilac-rose dress. She changes into the frock then skates into the kitchen and twirls; the dress suits her even more than it did my daughter.

Giving clothes to children is funny. The kids have to like the clothes and then who knows if the parents will let them wear them. And then there are the unintentionally-comic requests; a friend of my daughter asked me to make her a Justin Bieber t-shirt. As if you can’t find one of those for $5 at Walmart! Still, I am gratified to think these particular garments will find another happy home. All told, the girls left with the Blue Dragon Egg Jacket, the Bleeding Heart Dress, the Rayon Tiered Leopard Dress, and Blue Goth.

(A retrospective:)

Happy As A Clam
Supermodels
Up Close, Flowers, Leaves, Vine
Pensive At The Coffee Shop