snapshots

our littlest guy is currently being retrieved early from school and ferried across town so he can then be (unwillingly) stuck with those odious 4-6 year old immunization shots.

i, however, am cringing with a moderate case of guilt at home, having pawned off the job on the hubby in one of my classic wimpy-yet-sadistic moves. in an alternate universe, the parallel version of me is the fascist despot of a small nation.




elle and i have been enjoying quiet mornings together. mornings where i sew and she rearranges the contents of my button compartments, where we paint watercolors on computer paper that curls beneath the moisture, where we lie feet-to-feet reading ann brashares and mo willems on the velvety family room couch.

she is growing up, this kid. her eyes change with the light: sometimes a grey sort of blue, sometimes ringed with aquamarine. (it's an odd sort of hope i have for her, that those who love her will find her beautiful, and those who don't will think her plain, will leave her in peace.)

i love that she still says the middle part of the alphabet as "l a little p." i love the way she calls her heeled sandals "the up shoes that i have." i love that much of life is a musical for her, where she sings self-composed tunes of cheese sandwiches and where is my mommy.




bee has been diagnosed with asthma, both activity-induced and the regular kind. it's a specific kind of horror watching your child struggle for breath in the darkest pockets of night. i'm glad to be armed with inhalers and nebulizers, to put those nights firmly behind us.




sometimes zee's fragility startles me, the way he effloresces in the warmth of my praise. the way he wilts beneath my disapproval. quite often i pray these days: please God, remind me to be so careful with this child.




and i find myself thinking: this. this is what it is to be blessed.