The clothes we don’t wear in the unmowed lawn at dawn.

Introduction to broken morning

I awake between slumbering bodies. I scratch my arm and find dry paint coming off. I often have paint on me.

Goodbye to a beautiful body

I wait at the top of the driveway with my three boys and we wave farewell to their beautiful mum. One is dressed. One is in pajamas. One is in a diaper and crocs. They all have undisguised and immortal love for their mom, as does their father.

Two of them take the long way home to the front door; circuiting to the DIY rope swing I put up several years ago and somehow is still intact. Together they push and bicker and invent new moves and eventually meander inside again. After picking some pre-breakfast apples in their limited and minimal degree of clothing, which ends up being a bit of blessing as I observe the sticky streaks wiped across their bodies.

All clothed, all ready

Story and song about Bacchus or Zacchaeus; I’ll leave it a mystery which.

“Yes!!” The youngest says: “a Jesus story!" as we gather round.
I’m interrupted early in:

-“…was he like, short, or super short, like 5 foot 9 short?” my smirking 12-year old says, knowing exactly the height of his father.

Segue into chores, which are completed to various levels of proficiency and competence. My hope and dream is that these things are less about those things right now, and more about habituation and ritual. Ideally, done with good spirits, which for the most part they are. Today.

Somehow two boys mistake bed-making for being an opportunity to imagine it’s not a bedroom, but a playground, jungle gym, or chimpanzee habitat. My protests fall on ignoring ears as they launch themselves amongst bunkbeds and crib; a shared and shell-shocked war zone of slumber, wardrobe inventory, and…something that yet to be described in a single word.

Post-lunch

A 34-month old stretches out on the couch, shirtless, conked and tired; a short respite before launching into the next orbit of excitement.

A short while later, sure enough, he’s roaming through dandelion fields, still sans shirt, blond hair catching sun, looking for bugs and flowers and it is these times that help me to focus less on unmowed, uncared-for lawns and more on the people using, actually using them, oblivious to how well they’re cared for or how pretty they look. Our yard right now looks really not pretty to me, but it helps me to reshape and refocus and reprioritize when I see kids finding pretty at a macro level amidst this environment. Oblivious to what is supposed to look good, he is finding joy and beauty amidst this tangly mess. If he can, I feel like I can. I am inspired by so many different ages.

Music for the masses

Two children pull out ukulele and guitar and bring their voices to the heavens, at least until they notice I’m paying attention, and my soul soars every time. Of this I never tire.

One step somewhere

Trying to paint my office. Strangely, it is easier to paint spaces that are empty than spaces that are not empty.

Sunlight makes me

A five-year old steps outside, stretches his arms:

“It is so beautiful today!”

And goes back inside.

Point the

There is more apple picking, and there is a great deal of blaming. Blaming for what? Just blaming, in general. He ate the bigger one, he knocked that apple down, he’s getting apple juice all over his shirt, he’s not finishing his whole apple, why won’t you make him climb up there and get me that apple up at the top? Et cetera. The blame game. Sometimes it’s fun at all ages.

Telly, the younger

A two- and five-year old watch episodes of Word Girl and Octonauts. Their main criteria and hope is that it is scary.

Telly, the older

A 12- and 14-year old watch Person of Interest in the evening with us. They also like scary, and are wanting to watch more Shyamalan films.

Summer afternoon share

We join up with my nephew and haul along some ice cream bars; just the thing for an early summer evening. There is swinging and acrobatics and chocolate-smeared faces, and possibly we should consider bathing some kids this month. We shall see.

Those we secretly steal credit from in the blazing day

I think of my niece, one of my nieces, a niece I used to see almost daily and now do not at all, but I am happy for the good memories and the times I get to see her, and the banter we still share, and the way we argue over who is better at many things, including saying goodbye:

“You’re getting better,” she says, “maybe even getting awesome at it like I taught you.”

Pretty sure I taught her. Don’t tell.

Dawn

One of our children, at the dusk of one age and the dawn of another. May we continue being gifted with mystery, mystique, and magic ever around the corner.