sweet William

William is starting to get long. I love it and I hate it. One Sunday night he ran down the stairs to kiss me. His mouth still had toothpaste on it and he pressed it on my cheek and threw his arms around my neck. I wrapped my arms around his torso and hugged him tight. "William," I told him, "you are getting too big! You need to stop it! Stop it right now!"

He laughed. "Nope! I'm going to keep getting big. Bigger and Bigger!"

"Then I'll have to shrink you." I put my hands on this head and pressed down while he giggled. "Shrink, shrink, shrink. There! Now you're going to be little forever. No more getting big."

"You can't do that, mom, I'm still getting bigger FOREVER. Bigger and bigger!"

"Nope! Too Late! I shrank you. You have to stay little."

He laughed and I tickled him and he shouted out "NO! I'm going to get BIG and I'm going to go to COLLEGE!"

I smiled. "Okay. I guess that's a good idea. But I will miss you!"

"MO-om," he said smiling, and he put his hands on my cheeks, "I will come home to be with you all the time!"

Then he hugged me quickly and ran up the stairs, calling "'Night, Mom!" over his shoulder, and I sat on the couch watching him, my hands over my heart, so grateful for this small perfect moment.

six

Last week this guy turned 6 years old :

and we decided (last minute) to throw a big birthday party.



It was so fun. Or, as Ivy is fond of saying, it was so so so so so so so so SO fun.

Michael loved it.

We all loved it.

I finally dragged them off the slide about 6:30 pm. We were exhausted and sunburned, but so so SO happy.

Happy birthday, Michael! Every year with you is a gift. I have a feeling this one will be amazing.

Superbly Situated

you politely ask me not to die and i promise not to
right from the beginning—a relationship based on
good sense and thoughtfulness in little things

i would like to be loved for such simple attainments
as breathing regularly and not falling down too often
or because my eyes are brown or my father left-handed

and to be on the safe side i wouldn’t mind if somehow
i became entangled in your perception of admirable objects
so you might say to yourself: i have recently noticed

how superbly situated the empire state building is
how it looms up suddenly behind cemeteries and rivers
so far away you could touch it—therefore i love you

part of me fears that some moron is already plotting
to tear down the empire state building and replace it
with a block of staten island mother/daughter houses

just as part of me fears that if you love me for my cleanliness
i will grow filthy if you admire my elegant clothes
i’ll start wearing shirts with sailboats on them

but i have decided to become a public beach an opera house
a regularly scheduled flight—something that can’t help being
in the right place at the right time—come take your seat

we’ll raise the curtain fill the house start the engines
fly off into the sunrise, the spire of the empire state
the last sight on the horizon as the earth begins to curve

-- by Robert Hershon




(picture by Ashley Larsen, June 2010)

buy me some peanuts

One of my least favorite things about where we live is the fact that we get some truly amazing windstorms. (At least, they're amazing to me.) (We might, at some point, need to discuss my particular issue with windstorms.) (It involves a tornado!) I bring it up because, last night the wind was a-blowin', and it was also the night of Michael's first little league game. We realized at the field that it would be torture to keep the kids there, so Ivy and Charlie and I went home while Christofer and William stayed to freeze watch. These pictures are courtesy of Christofer's phone:

Poor cold Michael. He missed that particular pitch, but Chris says he did get a hit both times he was at bat. (Chris also says that particular pitch was outside and a bad pitch, but Michael swung anyway.) (We take little league very seriously around here, I guess.)

Anyway. Michael and William are loving baseball right now and it is so much fun. The other day, Chris came home for lunch so we took a picnic to the park. While Ivy played on the slide and I rocked Charlie, the boys practiced using their new mitts with their dad. It was...idyllic.

If only everyday were 75 degrees and spent watching the people you love having a beautiful time.

dance festival

all the end of the year festivities are fun but exhausting. I suspect that in four years, when three out of the four kids are in elementary, I will kind of hate the beginning of June.