Image by nan palmero

I stood in front of the Blue Café, inhaling the cocktail of fried chicken and pizza that wafted out of its open doors, and checked my watch. As I looked up, I saw a familiar figure loping through the Midtown crowd, his brown cowboy boots click-clacking on the sidewalk.

I smiled as he pulled me in for a hug, his trademark scent of Ivory Soap and Seabreeze astringent washing over me, and said, “Hello, my pet.”

“Hey there. So would it be okay if we tried this place?” I asked, gesturing toward the Le Pain Quotidien that towered over the take-out place that he had suggested earlier that day.

“Le Pain Quotidien, eh? Sounds smashing. After you, sis,” he said as he opened the door.

A chipper blonde woman in impossibly pointy boots led us to a table for two on the second floor and handed us our menus before walking away with a “Bon appétit!”

“Smells like wood in here. I wonder if it’s new,” I said. “Have you ever been here before?”

“Not me. The Sauce and I are regulars at the Blue Café next door,” he said, “They’ve got a huge buffet. Chicken wings, meatballs, all-you-can-eat pasta.”

“Who’s ‘The Sauce?’” I asked.

“Karl Karsawski, of course,” he replied, a playful squint dancing around his blue eyes.

“Of course,” I smiled back. “So what are you going to have? I know it’s no Blue Café, but I bet you’ll like it.”

“What are you gonna get?” he asked.

“I think I’ll get the Aged Gruyere Tartine,” I said.

He let out a “Ha!” and punched the air in triumph: “I knew it! Carlita’s Way asked me where we were going for lunch and I told her: ‘I don’t know, but my sister only eats cheese’ and now here you are ordering a plate of cheese. I’m a genius.”

“You know me well, my dear,” I said, “I presume you’ll be ordering a side of beef?”

“Hmm, I think I’ll make do with the chicken and pesto tartine. What’s a tartine anyway?”

“An open-faced sandwich.”

“Oh, I get it, because it would be too simple to say ‘open-faced sandwich.’”

An eager young man took our orders – two tartines, two lemonades – and confirmed that this was the restaurant’s opening day – hence the eau de wood shavings that dominated the sweet smells coming from the bakery under where we were sitting.

After the waiter left, my brother looked over the railing next to our table and declared: “This is an excellent tactical position. We can see everyone coming and going. I kind of want to drop something on someone.”

“Please don’t,” I said, hearing my mother’s voice in my ear as the words left my mouth.

“Not even this lemon?” he asked, dangling the fruit from his water glass over the railing and raising his eyebrow.

“That wouldn’t be very nice,” I said. “So what are you up to this summer?”

“My cross-country drive! I’m flying out to meet Whitney in California and then we’re driving his car back to New Jersey,” he said as if he had already told me this plan. He hadn’t. “We’re making lots of stops. Hey, remember on Price is Right when there was that little mountain climber that climbed up the slide while the music was playing? That’ll be me.”

“Hmm,” I hesitated, “I kind of pictured the map in Indiana Jones where they show the little airplane flying between the cities.”

“Yes! That’s even better,” he nearly leapt out of his chair. “How did that song go anyway?”

“What song?”

“The song from Price is Right? The yodeling one?”

And that’s when I started singing: “Yo-da-lay-ee-oo. Yo-da-lay-ee-oo. Yo-da-lay-ee-oo.”

“Yes!” And he joined in: “Yo-da-lay-ee-oo. Yo-da-lay-ee-oo. Yo-da-lay-ee-oo.”

We were on the third round when the waiter arrived with our lemonades.

Kids again.

Image by amanderson2

In honor of Mother’s Day, I’d like to share a post I wrote last year in honor of my mom.

You’ve probably gleaned from previous posts that I have a good relationship with my mother.  The truth of it is that I have a great relationship with her: I value her opinion like no one else’s; I trust her moral compass; I never want to disappoint her; I want to someday have a relationship with Baby Sister like the one my mom and I have now.

And I’m not sure that I ever realized how much I appreciated her until I became a mom myself.

In some ways, I’ve repeated elements of my mother’s journey: moving from the state of my birth to the state of hers, having three children.  And I learned how to be a mother from her.  From the little things she did.  From the big things I learned from those little things.

Like delayed gratfication.

When I was in junior high, I really wanted a Benetton sweatshirt – in the way I really wanted Eastland shoes, Love’s Baby Soft perfume, and an anorak from L.L. Bean.  My mom didn’t see the need in a $50 sweatshirt, apparently, and resisted my requests.  But, on a family trip to Utah, she compromised and bought me one that was marked down at the Benetton store in Salt Lake City (marked down, perhaps, because it had “Utah” printed on it in an odd turquoise cursive font under the ubiquitous Benetton logo).  And she didn’t make fun of me – at least not that I remember – when I asked the salesgirl for a specific kind of shopping bag for my loot, one with a drawstring that I could wear messenger bag style, like the other girls in my class did.

It wasn’t the exact sweatshirt I wanted, but I treasured it anyway.  Maybe because I had to wait to get it.  Maybe because that hokey “Utah” bridged my tween-age insecurities and desire to fit in and the understanding and generosity of my mom on that trip.

My mother also spoiled me rotten, but in the simplest ways.

When my brothers and I were little, she always listened to the “oldies station” (“Big D 103!”) so we grew up singing the greatest hits of the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s – even though, it occurs to me now, the 80s weren’t, technically, “oldies” in the 80s – while sitting in the back seat of our dark green Chevy Citation hatchback, the backs of our thighs sticking to the vinyl seats.  If a song that one of us really liked was still on when we had reached our destination, my mom would keep the car running until it had finished.  That’s just the kind of mom she was.

One day I was riding in the car with my Aunt Kathy (she wasn’t really my aunt, but she was one of those mom’s-best-friends-who-feel-like-family-kind-of-aunts) and her daughter.  We were meeting my mom at the bowling alley where she was in a Tuesday league, a place that smelled of smoke and sweat and a type of cheese one only finds on Doritos.  When Aunt Kathy pulled into the parking lot, a song I loved - Bertie Higgins‘s “Key Largo” – came on the radio:

We had it all
Just like Bogie and Bacall
Starring in our old late, late show
Sailing away to Key Largo

Here’s lookin’ at you kid
Missing all the things we did
We can find it once again, I know
Just like they did in Key Largo

“I love this song!” I called out just as Aunt Kathy pulled into a parking space.  Giving me a smile of appreciation – and no doubt acknowledging my superior taste in music – she proceeded to kill the ignition and “Key Largo” right along with it.  I was shocked, somehow hurt, when she turned off the car.

That wasn’t what moms do when a kid likes a song, I thought.

Years later, I’ve long forgiven Aunt Kathy, but still thank my mom for teaching me the beauty of spoiling my kids in the simplest ways: an extra hug, an extra chapter of The Hobbit, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” on repeat in the minivan.

Happy Mother’s Day to you.

Image by SweetOnVeg

A throbbing bass line and Auto-Tune vocals blare from the speakers on the ceiling. My husband’s left eyebrow creeps up, a mirror image of my right, and silently asks, “We’re paying a babysitter for this?” We join the line anyway, the savory scent of beans and sharp tang of salsa welcoming us above the din.

In front of us stands a teenage girl who’s been poured into a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt emblazoned with a silver sequined bird. As she shakes out her mane of blonde hair, the gentle honey hue of her natural shade peeks out underneath. Her mom hovers at her side in a larger version of the same uniform (her shirt, also white, features a bedazzled butterfly), trying to get a peak at the iPhone message her daughter is tap, tap, tapping with her thumbs. The two of them are surrounded by a force field of scent – gardenias, freesia, ylang ylang – a perfume counter waiting to order burritos.

When we make it to the counter, a young woman offers a monotone greeting and then pauses, looking at us, her chocolate eyes small behind her glasses, her gloved hands poised expectantly over the tortillas and taco shells. It’s clear that we’re supposed to know what to do next, but we don’t. It’s our first time here.

She shifts her weight from her left leg to her right and launches into her spiel: “Burrito bowl burrito crispy taco soft taco?” My husband rests his hand on the small of my back and nudges me forward, nominating me as the advance team in this particular battle.

“Um, burrito?” I respond uncertainly. It’s enough to set her in motion. I make my way down the line, our reluctant guide coaching me through rice (brown), beans (vegetarian black), salsa (medium), guacamole (yes, please), cheese (sure), sour cream (no, thank you).

After my husband secures his dinner – crispy tacos – we collect our drinks from the soda fountain. I fill my tall paper cup with ice and pull it away from the soda dispenser just after the caramel bubbles of Diet Coke slide over the edge. I slurp the soda from my hand as we scout out a table, in silent agreement to avoid a seat under the speaker.

I climb onto my stool at a high top table and start to unwrap my burrito, peeling back the thin layer of aluminum foil, its metallic ridges warmed by the contents inside. While my husband helps himself to the tortilla chips, a whiff of lime escapes from the bag and reminds me of how hungry I am. I wrangle my burrito into my hands then and take a bite: the hint of lime that was in the air is now in mouth, mixing with piquant cilantro, the smoke of beans, and the cool bite of avocado. It’s surprisingly good.

I smile at my husband and he giggles back, handing me a napkin and brushing his chin with his hand in imitation of a gesture he usually aims at our four year old. I bring my fingers to my chin in reply and find a rogue piece of rice that I sweep into my mouth.

“Buen provecho, babe,” I say. “Happy date night.”

Those of you who have been hanging out here for awhile have probably already met my dear friend Bruce Dolin. Not only is Bruce a husband, father of two sons (at least one of whom “is able to use an electric hand-dryer”*), clinical psychologist, former director and screenwriter, blogger, and the author of my all-time favorite blog post (which I managed to trick him into publishing here…cue evil laughter), but he is also the author of the new book, Privilege of Parenting: On Becoming Our Best Selves Through Raising Children.

Those of you who have been hanging out here for awhile probably also know that I am generally not a big fan of parenting books. Indeed, the only thing I know for sure about parenting is that there is no one way to do any of this. And that’s why I love Bruce’s book so much: he doesn’t promise a child-care equivalent of a Get Rich Quick scheme. Instead he admits upfront, “The art of parenting is not so much knowing what to do, as it is consistently doing it,” and goes on to explain that his book “is not so much a ‘how-to’ book as it is ‘why-to.’ The more deeply we understand each other, ourselves and our children, the more we are able to be our best Self in parenting and all our endeavors.”

So how does Bruce go about helping us understand ourselves, each other, and our kids? By tapping into his nearly two decades of experience as a clinical psychologist in the “system” and in private practice (not to mention as a partner and as a dad) to tell stories that skillfully illustrate his ideas. We meet Lenny, a foul-mouthed group home kid of questionable hygiene, to learn about the importance of trying to understand rather than change. And Allison, a sweet 11-year old left out of the “cool” girl’s sleepover party, to illuminate the connection between self-esteem and kindness. And Joseph, a sweet, developmentally disabled boy on the cusp of adulthood, to reflect on “our essential task as human beings: loving presence to the moment and all it contains.” Bruce also mines his exhaustive knowledge of film and literature to give us other lessons from sources as wide-ranging as Atticus Finch, Mary Poppins, and Mr. Henshaw (to whom I wrote a letter in grade school and received in reply a postcard from Beverly Cleary…but that’s a story for another time).

Among the many images and lessons from Bruce’s book that I will carry with me as I continue to grow up alongside my kids is that of the bowl. Bruce explains,

As parents we invariably need to be present to our children, as a psychological bowl, to help hold whatever they cannot – such as intense sadness. One way to think about depression is as sadness without a bowl to contain it, so that even a small amount of sorrow can become overwhelming…

Paying sincere attention to our child and their feelings offers a way out; being understood helps a child form a self and this empowers them to contain their own sadness rather than feel engulfed by it, which is like drowning in fear and isolation…Dealing with sadness in those we love, especially children, can be emotionally very hard but is also very rewarding when we see their spirits lift again, and when we see them grow strong and solid through years of being understood and loved.

Although I am fortunate not to have dealt with sadness intense enough to be considered depression in any of my kids, I find the idea of the bowl to be a powerful one. And it’s one that I turn to frequently when one of the boys is having a tantrum. While holding them and trying to comfort them, I’ve even gone so far as to imagine myself as a bowl trying to contain all of their anger, sadness, and frustration – whether it be due to low blood sugar or a smashed Lego tower. As I try to contain and understand, I do my best to employ what Bruce calls “our penultimate parenting tool – the ability to hold, to bear compassionate witness, and to simply be with our children.”

I bought Bruce’s book on the day it was published last December. I then read it through cover to cover. Since then, I have dipped back in before bed each night to read a page or two to find inspiration and camaraderie as I try to parent mindfully. From his graceful writing and powerful examples to his gentle sense of humor and helpful exercises to consider, Bruce offers us parents a powerful tool to create for ourselves and our kids “good feelings that last.”

Want your own copy? Go grab one today! Privilege of Parenting is available at Amazon in paperback and for the Kindle.

*Impressive, huh? See Chapter 6 to learn how Bruce managed this feat and to hear more of his other thoughts on calming anxious kids.

Image by epSos.de

My mother held me in the passenger seat of a green Chevy Citation as my dad drove from the hospital to the yellow Connecticut colonial where I would roller skate in the basement and dress as Strawberry Shortcake for Halloween, my breath hot under the plastic mask. Where I would wear a brown plaid Catholic school jumper and L.L. Bean backpack and fight for a seat in the last row of the bus.

I took many trips from that house – to basketball practice three times a week, up the hill on my Big Wheel, over the handlebars of my bike into a forsythia bush. To Cleveland every Thanksgiving, my brothers and I kicking for legroom in the back of the Buick. Crisscrossing the country by train, waiting for cattle to be cleared from the track in Montana, wondering if Texas would ever end. Modern-day Mark Twains, we steamed down the Mississippi aboard a paddlewheeler.

I carpooled to high school, studying my algebra notes in the back of a white Jeep Cherokee as it sped up 91. I rode shotgun in my friends’ hand-me-down sedans, laughter and invincibility harmonizing with R.E.M. and Ace of Bass. I piled my clothes and my Radio Shack computer into the back of the Jeep – now dented after I spun out coming home from my boyfriend’s – and headed south on 91. I sat on a wooden fence in front of my dorm and watched my parents pull away.

I walked to art history with a boy. We walked to Wawa’s for midnight subs. We flew to Paris. He stayed in Connecticut while I moved to the city, taking the 1/9 uptown to teach third grade, then traded in Metro North for the Mass Pike, driving my own green Chevy away from him to teach high school near Boston. We got married and packed our Ikea bookcases into an orange Allied Van and headed for the Midwest where he’d teach and I’d write.

We raced to the hospital in the dark past tired cornfields, me puffing through contractions, a carseat rattling around the trunk. We had a baby boy. And another one two springs later. Then we drove to the hospital again, the low January sun reflecting off the snow. The doctors told me to lie still, to wait for our baby girl to arrive. She came a few weeks later.

I haven’t stopped moving since.

Image by edenpictures

It was a summertime ritual: after dinner on a hot, humid evening, we’d pile into the Buick and wind our way up the road and down a hill to the Dairy Queen, the backs of our skinny, shorts-clad legs sticking to the vinyl seat.

Once we arrived, I’d wait in line with my mom while my dad and brothers scouted out some territory on one of the benches next to the parking lot. As the items came up – a large cone for my dad, a Coke float for my older brother, a small dish of vanilla for the younger one – I would ferry them from my mom at the counter to the boys waiting for their treats.

And then it was my turn.

I’d had lots of favorites over the years: the Heath Bar Blizzard, the Dilly Bar, the Mr. Misty. But that year, the year I was eight, I usually ordered an ice cream cone: a perfect chocolate soft-serve minaret with a shell of chocolate dip on top.

That evening, the sun insistent despite the late hour, I attacked my ice cream the way I always did: I bit into the not-yet-hard chocolate shell and slurped up a mouthful of ice cream. I then dismantled the shell, bite by bite, its crunch the perfect appetizer for the smoothness of the ice cream to come.

And then, just as I dislodged the last shard of dip, I noticed the smallest rivulet of chocolate dripping down the cone and onto the fronts of my fingers. I started to eat faster then, trying to stem the tide of melted ice cream. But my efforts were in vain: as I ate the ice cream at the top of the cone, the stream coming from the bottom turned into a torrent and my hand, my pink jelly shoes, and the pavement nearby were drowning in chocolate.

“Kris, you’ve got to lick around,” my mom offered.

“Lick around?”

She took my cone from me then, not afraid of the sticky mess it had become – she had three kids; she’d seen worse – and handed me an extra napkin. She then showed me how she rotated her hand to lick the part where ice cream met cone to keep the drips from turning into rivers.

My mom held onto my cone while I used the napkin to clean my hands and the tops of my feet, the scratchy yellow paper clinging stubbornly to the sticky parts in the webs between my fingers. After I’d tidied up, she gave me back my cone, as neat now as it had been the moment the teenager behind the counter first handed it to me.

“Okay,” she said, “you try.”

I imitated her movements then, alternating delicate bites from the top with housekeeping licks around the bottom.

“It looks like you’ve got it,” she smiled down at me as I beamed up at her.

And I did get it: even the very best things need tending to.

Image by rmricci

We all know the story of the tortoise and the hare: A rabbit challenges a turtle to a race. Having left the slow-moving turtle in his dust, the overconfident rabbit decides to take a nap in the middle of the course, but wakes to find that his slow-but-steady opponent has won the race while he was sleeping.

So what does that have to do with me? Well, lately I’ve been thinking that I’m sort of like a rabbit, but I want to be more like a turtle.

Confused? Let me explain.

Last month, I had the chance to participate in A Soulful Cleanse with Rebecca Mullen.

Rebecca reached out to me when I was in the middle of Project Simplify – remaking my boys’ room and our pantry in short order – and offered me another approach to dealing with clutter.

Instead of overhauling large areas in small amounts of time, Rebecca invited me to focus on one tiny space of clutter under which, she believes, lies patterns and habits and fears and dreams. You might think you’re cleaning out your closet, but what you’re really doing is making peace with your kids getting older and the inexorable march of time.

Sounds deep? It was.

Those of you who have been hanging out here for awhile know that I don’t do so well with tiny. I like grand plans and big, sweeping changes. I’ve undertaken a Happiness Project. I’ve overhauled my family’s eating habits. I’ve started running again. I’ve stopped biting my nails.

And that’s all fine and well at the beginning when I’m energized and committed. Like the rabbit in the fable, I rush out of the starting gates and am efficient and effective. But then I often flounder when an obstacle arises: a sick kid, out-of-town guests, a particularly compelling episode of The Good Wife. Not only do I not bother to stop and think about why I’m making the change in the first place, but I sometimes abandon a goal altogether after the initial “runner’s high” has worn off. But despite this pattern, I continue to believe that being fast and being strong is the way to handle any issue.

And I suspect I’m not alone in this. I wonder how many people – and maybe women especially – are afraid of slowing down, of being gentle to themselves because we’ve been taught that pushing on and powering through are signs of strength.

Awhile ago Rebecca introduced me to the idea of a turtle step: setting a goal so small that it seems laughably easy. And in this class, she encouraged me to pair a turtle step with a reward. So instead of spending an afternoon tearing my closet apart, I decided to spend five minutes a day decluttering my children’s outgrown toys and clothes and then ten minutes treating myself to looking at pictures of my kids.

The five minutes part? I’ve been struggling with making this change, with slowing down and doing mindfully the things that I’ve spent my life plowing through. Because a big part of me still wants to push and dump it all in a bag and drop it off at Goodwill. Wouldn’t that be easier than looking at a tiny onesie my baby girl wore just last year – and to think about how much she’s grown and the fact that she’ll never be a newborn again?

I’m struggling, but I’m trying. And the ten minutes part makes it all worth it. The sitting down with a cup of tea and looking back at a picture of my little one, her buttery thighs sticking out of that very onesie, her hand stretching – stretching - to reach her toe.

Sometimes it’s good to be a turtle.

In honor of (Easter) rabbits, turtles, and all the creatures of spring, I wish a Happy Easter and a Happy Passover to all of my friends celebrating this weekend.

When I talked to Rebecca yesterday, I mentioned that I was going to write a post about my experience in her class and she was good enough to offer Motherese readers a 50% discount in the next session of A Soulful Cleanse. Just let her know I sent you.

Image by Alan Cleaver

“Wake up, Mommy!” my four year old son called to me last night during that witching hour between the end of dinner and the beginning of his bedtime ablutions.

“Huh?”

“I said, ‘Wake up!’”

“I’m not asleep, baby.”

“Oh, I thought you were.”

I wasn’t asleep. That was the truth. But I wasn’t exactly awake either.

Instead I was curled over my iPhone, absentmindedly chewing on the nail of my left ring finger and checking my e-mail.

The intake: an update from BabyCenter (Subject: “Your 2-Year-Old: Nasty Habits”), a reminder about the new science-based play space in town, a note from my neighbor about the homeowners association’s annual tag sale.

You know, critical stuff.

“Mommy?”

There he was again.

“Hmm?”

“Can you read me this chapter?”

“Huh? Uh, yeah, just a second.”

Another e-mail. Oh good, my Amazon order shipped.

I moved on from my e-mail then. I had to check my Words With Friends games.

First game. “BODE” on Triple Word score with the B on a Triple Letter. 48 points. Nice.

Next one. Six vowels and a K. Hmm…

“Um, Mommy?”

“What?” I said it more sharply. I was trying to figure out what to do with that K. I’d already told him to wait a minute.

“Will you read to me, Mommy?”

“Just a min-ute,” I barked, sharper still.

He walked away.

I turned back to my business. I never did find a good place for that K so I swiped over to Twitter, responded to a tweet about favorite books on writing (Annie Dillard, Stephen King, Anne Lamott), and followed a link to an article about assigning dog breeds for the leads in Downton Abbey.

I don’t even like dogs.

“Any new e-mails?” I silently wondered and checked the icon on my home screen.

Nope. Nothing pressing. Nothing important.

I looked at my son then, slouched on the couch with his book open and studying its pictures.

“What are you reading, buddy?”

He told me information I already knew: “I don’t know how to read. I need you to read to me.”

“Right. Well, what book did you choose?”

“Medieval Warfare,” he responded, flourishing the book he’d chosen at the library that morning. “I want to learn more about Swiss pikemen.”

Ahh. Now this was pressing. This was important.

“Scooch over, bud.” I lowered myself onto the couch next to him, swung my legs up beside his, and covered us both with the afghan that migrates from chair to couch across our living room. He rested his ankles on my shins and we got down to business.

I began, “The Swiss pikemen were well-trained and were known for their skill, bravery, and toughness. They sometimes offered their services for pay to armies across Europe.”

We looked then at the picture of the brightly festooned soldiers with their long, sharp spears marching in line up the side of an Alp. We noticed the feathers on their helmets and their lack of armor. We wondered how they would have felt standing their ground in the face of a charging knight on horseback.

“Mommy?”

“Yes, baby?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Can we keep reading?”

“Absolutely.”

And so we read on. Wide awake.

Image by Janet Ramsden

On Sunday mornings, some people go to church. I go to the grocery store.

The boys take turns coming along, clamoring for the chance to spend some time alone with me – and for the chance to get a free cookie from the ladies behind the bakery counter.

This Sunday morning, my two year old joined me. After gathering my coupons and grocery bags and buckling him into his carseat, we headed for the store. The day that had started out hazy and unseasonably hot turned angry as we drove the short distance to the store. The skies opened just as we were dashing through the parking lot.

Soggy, frustrated (I dried my hair this morning with a round brush and now I look like a wet dog!), trying to decipher the smudged writing on my list, I was decidedly grumpy by the time we reached the dairy section. My impatience only grew as I looked for Little Brother’s favorite yogurt, nowhere to be found. A friendly voice called my name just then and I rearranged my face into a smile before looking up and into the eyes of an acquaintance from my old book club.

A fellow mom of three, she is the kind of woman I admire: kind, funny, patient, ready to play Legos or tennis or read for hours. I hadn’t seen her in a long time, but was glad to find her this morning – a bit of sunshine among the clouds.

She caught me up on her boys. One was getting ready for spring Little League, but couldn’t manage to connect bat with ball. Another was waking up with crusty eyes due to food allergies. Her eldest was having trouble with an older kid on the bus. Although she only spoke for a minute, I could hear the exhaustion in her voice, how badly she wanted to help her kids and how hard it was for her to feel like she couldn’t.

“And how about you guys?” she asked. “How’s it going?”

Little Brother answered for me then, a grin stretching across his face, the chocolate from his cookie a clown’s make-up around his lips: “We just ran through a puddle and got all wet!”

If I had answered before him, I might have told her that Baby Sister had been waking up way too early for the past few weeks and that she doesn’t really eat anything except for Cheerios, that the boys are driving me nuts with their constant wrestling, that I haven’t had enough time to write. That it was pouring rain when we were running into the store and now I’m steaming inside my slicker.

But I didn’t. Instead I smiled at him and at her and said, “We’re great.”

And then I offered up a silent prayer of thanks, so brief it didn’t register until later. For this moment of parenting, when problems are confined to the four walls of our house and the puddles outside them. For tiredness that comes from too many readings of Knuffle Bunny and too many games of Nerf basketball. For bruises that can be cured with a hug.

Because I suspect that it’s never going to get any easier than this moment, right now.

The storm burst was over by the time I wheeled our full shopping cart into the parking lot. I unloaded our bags into the trunk, then ferried Little Brother over to the cart corral. A giant puddle pooled in the space between the corral and our car. We could have gone the long way around, but we were a few minutes from home, where bathtubs and dry socks and the rest of our family were waiting for us.

So we held hands. And we jumped right in.

The pantry before

The pantry after

Most interesting find: a dessicated whole wheat pretzel stick, having plummeted from the top shelf all the way to the floor, lying in repose at the bottom of a giant stock pot.

With thanks to my mother for her able assistance in supporting my spring cleaning efforts!