100% Natural. Real Life.

Lily spends half her life like this because she makes a speedy escape every time I change her diaper. Fun for her, not for me. But cute for everyone.



Henry spends more time like this than I'd like to admit, even more last week 'cause he's been sick. And I was running around like a crazy lady getting ready for his dad to turn thirty and trying to prepare a talk I had to give last Wednesday evening.



Sometimes these two play so cute together. And then there are days like yesterday where Henry bonked Lily on the head with the heel of my church shoe. Not one of my finer mothering moments, I bonked him right back and asked him how he liked it.



The other day while I was transporting laundry from one place to another (do any of you ever ponder on the neverending-ness of laundry? It is a constant shuffle of clothing - closet to body, body to hamper, hamper to washer, washer to drying rack, drying rack to folded pile, folded pile to bed, to floor, to bed, to floor (sometimes put away, sometimes just picked from 'til it disappears). And the cycle begins again...) Anyway, so the other day I was at some step in that shuffling process and Lily was crawling behind me in tears. It was pathetic. So, I picked her up, plopped her in the laundry basket and carried her around with me. It made us both smile.

The other night I returned from a baby shower to find my fireplace transformed into a tented lean-to. Buzz was resting safely inside.



And our Christmas tree topper was perched atop one of the rabbit ears on our TV antenna. I love the leftovers of Henry's creative play.



Speaking of creative play, the other night after I'd tucked Henry into bed, I walked by his room and could see light glowing through the crack under his door. I walked in to find him criss-cross-applesauce on the floor in a pile of wire hangers. This child is always playing with obscure objects, reminds me so much of my brother, Ryan, who could often be found on the top step of our staircase with a spatula, a couple coat hangers and a few dinosaur figures, having an imaginary heyday. I see so much of Ryan in Henry's play.





And the photos. All grayish and blurry - that's how many (most?) of my pictures turn out.
So. There you have it. The uncensored, unedited, reality of our life.

My energies lately have been focused on loving these honest, mundane parts of it.
And you know, some pretty priceless little moments emerge from the day-to-dailiness of life, like Friday morning when Henry wandered over to me and asked, "Mama, will you snuggle with me?" And I said, "sure." And then, seeing how he'd captured my full attention, he pulled a clever "bait & switch" on me and said, "I mean, what I meant to actually say was...will you do zerbers to me? Big, loud ones?"

We rumbled the living room with big, loud zerbers. And belly laughs.