Refreshed

The yellow spot came clean out. We're sleeping in unblemished, white sheets. Life's a few notches lovelier when you're sleeping in clean sheets.
Today I decided (with a little encouragement from my dear mother and some inspiration from Lori) to stop being lame about summer. We're making plans - themed weeks, outings, play-dates, crafting, baking, imagining. I told Henry we were going to have a great summer, we slapped high fives and made things official with a box of real-fruit popsicles. Life's a few notches lovelier when you have real-fruit popsicles your freezer.
This afternoon Lindsay called and invited us to join them for an evening swim. Henry lit up like a glow-bug at the mention of "swimming with Parker." We snarfed down some dinner, rounded up towels and goggles, shimmied into our swimwear and shuffled out the door.
Just as I was shoving Lily's delicious li'l thighs into the awkwardness that is a swim-diaper, a bolt of lightning spidered across the sky. I dipped her tootsies into the shallow end for a moment of refreshment and then we toweled off and piled back into the car. Luckily, Henry managed about twenty minutes of swimming before we had to leave. (Thanks for the invite, Linds...can we have a rain check for another swim date sometime soon? xo).
And then we came home, hunkered and waited for the rumored storm. The sky turned a foreboding shade of green. The tornado sirens sounded in blaring succession. The trees danced, branches bent by gathering winds. The clouds spat teasers of what was coming. And then it came - a bonafide thunderstorm.

Salve to all my senses.

When the violent eye had passed, I opened the windows in my bedroom and sat in the window-seat beneath them. I put my face right up next to the screen and breathed. Slow and deep, through my nose. And the smell of wet cement and softened dirt woke up parts of me that were sleeping - refreshment to the ends of my fingernails.
Henry, sitting right next to me, also inhaling the stormy air, piped up, "it smells like water, mom."
"It smells like Heaven."
"Oh. Yea. It does smell like Heaven."

The rain sprinkled in sideways, wetting the knees of my pajamas. We sat there 'til the thunder quieted. Then we laid Lily in her crib. And the three of us went out to play in the rain. We took a little ball and kicked it around the cul-de-sac. Henry splashed in the puddles. That didn't get him wet enough, so he laid down in them, belly to asphalt, and begged Nate and me to get wet with him. We stopped short of prostrating ourselves in the street, but got a good dampening from the now-drizzling rain.
Mmmmm, (I'll bet you know how I'm going to end this...)
Life's a few notches lovelier after soaking up the wonder of an evening thunderstorm.

Also lovely:
sharing mealtime with these silly little faces: