Of course I jinxed it

By writing about the few great nights. Last night he was WIDE EYED, and entirely NOT asleep for over an hour at about 1:30 a.m.

Four paragraphs & four things beginning with "A"

A full day back at the classroom. They greet me with eager smiles and two-page weekend news letters in ever more confidant print. They use capitals and periods and I challenged them to write about what they felt, saw and said. One little boy wrote, I could feel the wind and I said to J, [...]

can't help myself: a picture post

The garden, underway. Sore arms & DH has a sunburn. Bean played all afternoon with his tractor in the newly tilled dirt. A long way before raised beds and fence posts, but closer than we were. So good to be outside. So good to have a man who, because he know’s my heart is set [...]

4 days off

have made all the difference. It always stuns me when I realize how entirely a lack of sleep and stress affect my life. How I feel completely altered, weaker, fragile at the center like a soft-boiled egg with days-on-end of stress and poor sleep; and then after a few days of extra naps and time [...]

Trembling heart

Sometimes my heart feels like a starfish belly: outside me, devouring the things I love. Sometimes it feels like an urchin’s purple back: a hundred quills around its pliant center. Sometimes it’s like the soft belly of a cat: turning to the sunlight, thrumming with internal delight. Sometimes it’s hard to have a heart this [...]

Day by day

Saturday: It hit me in the middle of the night, up again, one more time, because of the small inconsolable wailing and flailing of a sharp elbow having, night terror dreaming, teething Bean, that I was officially one step away from going insane. I told DH as much, in a whimpering whisper, having already burst [...]

Nonstop

The kids stare longingly at the windows and look like second graders already. I watch them read now, and see they have hardly a ny memory of the time when the stragled in at the beginning of the year, wide eyed and tangled in short syllable words. Assessments are mid-way. It is gratifying: they’re doing [...]

Wishing on dandilions

Sometimes, blowing on a dandelion gone to seed, I wish for superhuman capabilities. Then I count my wishes as the tiny seed umbrellas lift on the wind and scatter, and my popsicle juice-faced boy laughs wildly in delight. I wish I could be okay with just four hours of sleep, instead of the seven I [...]