Transition

 

 

Although they had a spring program in which they sang about bumblebees and flowers and then walked over to hug their teachers and get a certificate the week before, Sam's official last day of school was a week later.  After five days of bringing home school supplies in his backpack and going on field trips and celebrating in various other ways, Sam's kindergarten class ended their year with a big family picnic.  Since Sam will be moving on to a different school next year, the afternoon was a little bittersweet.  Families spread out picnics on the shady hill behind St. Mary's and Sam ran around trying to find all his friends for pictures.  We got phone numbers from the moms so we could stay in touch and set up playdates and stay connected, and even when he hugged Miss Kay goodbye he promised to stop in to see her when Eva is there next year.  St.Mary's has given Sam such a amazing start and he's made a lot of great friends, but we couldn't help but feel a little sad about it all coming to an end.

 

In order to make the transition a little easier, Sam and I walked over to his new school where he'll be in first grade so he could meet the new school nurse and go over the details of how peanut allergies are handled in the public school system.  And Sam was very excited to see all the big kids he'll have at his next school.

 

And of course, a little Culver's ice cream is always a good way to celebrate such a big transition.  Sam is more than ready for first grade.  Wow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fast Spring

 

 

We arrived in a rush after gulping McDonald's chicken nuggets and surviving the hot rush hour crawling traffic across the bridge, and we all had to take several deep breaths as we turned on to Hauser Street and discovered a line of cars and a precarious parking situation just ten minutes before game time.  I parallel parked on the road and threw on the backpack and the folding chair and grabbed the Packer blanket and handed each of the kids their water bottles and said "Let's move."  We followed a line of rushing parents, Eva complaining about her flip flops as we walked along the rockbed roadside and Sam constantly distracted and slowing to look at all the kids in different team shirts. 

 

"Come on.  Move," I barked as the hot sun was already pushing down on us and I started dreading what the next 3 hours were going to be like 

 

Once we made it to the grass I exhaled slightly and then Eva said she had to go potty and we ran to the port-a-potties and then stood and waited and waited and waited while she needed a great deal of time.  With 4 minutes to spare, she came out of the potty and we washed her hands and I sent Sam running through the crowds in the direction of field 9J.

 

Along the west side of the field we found our people, Sam's friends and their parents, and all the other Euro kids dressed in red and white and kicking a ball around with their coach.

 

For the next 3 and a half hours, the boys (and the amazing Abby) ran and ran and really played their hearts out, each one of them at some point getting a fire in the belly and driving for the goal.  They passed and defended and shared the ball and played aggressively and laughed and cheered and made each and every parent proud.

 

By the time the third game started late at a little after 8pm many of the parents were tired, but the sun was lower in the sky and gloaming light and cool air made for perfect fall-like conditions for watching a ball game.  Eva and Eomji played tag and soccer with Abby's big sister, and the kids got a little punch drunk on the field, but I got a tear in my eye when Sammy posed with his team and then again with his club and his Brazilian coach.  I wasn't prepared to so suddenly be caught up in the emotions of another ending on the same day that Sam had his last day of kindergarten.  All my friends with older children tell me that it goes so very fast, and some days when the sun is hot and the kids are dragging their feet and whining for uppy or complaining that they are hungry or tired or have to go potty for the tenth time, it's hard to imagine that it could go fast.  But then you find yourself standing in front of a bench full of 12 soccer players who grew and matured and learned so much during the spring season and you realize if you had blinked you would have missed so much.

 

Wow.  Thanks for another great spring, Winona Euro!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bones and A Witch

Admittedly during the fifteen minutes of histrionics before we left the house, I wondered if it would really be worth it, if all the on and off of various costume pieces followed by the inevitable whining about the tag rubbing someone's neck the wrong way and the way the inside of the mask of a costume smelled icky and the I-don't-want-to-wear-my-gloves and she's-touching-me and he's-teasing-me and her-bucket-is-bigger-than-mine and there's-something-in-my-shoe-there's-something-in-my-shoe-there's-something-in-my-shoe would ever end so that we could just enjoy a nice fall night out in our neighborhood. But within 30 seconds after the first house in which we found a black plastic scorpion in the driveway and Eva got to ring the doorbell and pose in her black tutu and witch's hat, it was already worth it.

During the long stretches where there weren't driveways to run up and lawns to traverse, I pulled the kids in the wagon, and there were, of course, occasion battles over who got to sit in which seat and who had the most candy and who got to ring the doorbell, but all in all it was another beautiful fall night in the Wisconsin countryside.  By the time we'd gotten candy from the first 3 houses, the kids asked if they could run from house to house, and as it got darker I worried over how far away from me I should let them get. Only once did the delayed dinner time take its effect on Eva's disposition and she dramatically laid down face first in the road screaming that she wanted to pull the wagon, but I took a few breaths and soldiered onward to the sound of more laughter and more running and more insistence that we go to the next house, quick, Mommy.

As the night sky got darker the wind died down, and the air was warmer than last year and the kids got to run and run and run while I stopped to chat with neighbors we see just once a year.  Sam was a trooper and did not whine once about the unbelievable amount of candy that people hand out with peanuts in them that he can't eat.  He would just graciously say thank you and remind me at the end of the driveway that I told him he could trade it for safe stuff when he got home.  Every year Halloween gets easier and easier for our little family of 3 as we navigate the peanut allergy and I try really hard not to say something out loud to all the people who drive their children around in cars, but it's hard to imagine next year could be any more delightful than this year was.

Photos from previous years:

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2011

Halloween 2010

Halloween 2009

Getting Noticed

I woke up at 1am this morning, and after peeing and getting a drink of water, I laid down and began tossing and turning.  When I had gone to bed, Sam's peanut allergy had not even been on my radar, but somehow those middle of the night sleep cycles bring the subconscious mind to the surface, and from 1am until 3am I flipped and kicked and wrestled with my blanket as I composed emails to his school.

He came home with another piece of non-peanut-friendly candy yesterday.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays another mother from our daycare picks him up, so I didn't get all the details, but Jamie handed me a little blue plastic egg with a chocolate bunny inside, and we stood on the sidewalk and discussed our disbelief.  The other mother who had done the preschool-to-daycare shuttle earlier in the day arrived and she handed me a bag of peanut-friendly candy, "because I felt bad for Sammy."  Sammy's eyes lit up and I reminded him to thank Pandy, and then we three mothers again talked about how it made no sense that this was still happening.

At 2:30am I finally got out of bed and went to my computer.  I opened up Microsoft Word and typed NOTICE in big bold letters at the top of the page.  I wrote a brief note about how there is a child in this classroom that has a peanut allergy and that peanut allergies can be fatal.  I asked for help in keeping my child safe and I included a list of peanut friendly snacks for parents who want to bring treats in to the classroom.  I then composed an email to Sam's teacher and attached the document.  I told her I didn't think the gentle reminder in last month's newsletter had been enough, and could we perhaps post this NOTICE outside Sam's classroom and include a copy in all the kid's cubbies?  At 2:58am I hit the send button.

At 7am I was secretly dreading our arrival at school, a little nervous about having to discuss the issue with Sam's teacher, afraid of being "the difficult mom."  But before we even got to his classroom I saw a bright yellow copy of the NOTICE posted beside the classroom door.  And as I helped Sammy take off his coat and hang it on the hook below his name, another parent set down the pile of papers in her hand while she helped her daughter.  On the top of her pile was a yellow copy of the same document, the big bold letters at the top saying NOTICE.  I peeked in the classroom and saw Mrs. Heather sitting at her desk smiling, and I waved and said thank you.

Only after I got in my car did the relief and gratitude bring tears to my eyes.  I'm still learning how to navigate the world as a peanut allergy mom, and I'm so grateful to those around me who support me in keeping my child safe.

Call Me Nutty

The summer that Sam was 2 and 1/2 I pulled up to the daycare and the kids were all outside playing.  Sam's eyes were swollen and red, his face puffed up as if he were full of air, and a steady stream of snot ran down his upper lip.  This was four hours after he had screamed at Jamie that he'd gotten some peanut butter on his hand and Jamie said "Oh, just lick it off."   Standing on the sidewalk in front of Jamie's listening to the story my first thought was "Oh no.  Not THAT allergy."

Admittedly before my son was diagnosed with a peanut allergy I didn't know anything about them other than the fact that peanut allergies can kill.  I didn't know that nearly 6 million (or 8%) of American children have food allergies.  I didn't know that the prevalence of peanut allergies among children had tripled between 1997 and 2008.  I didn't know that 1 in 13 children under age 3 were affected by food allergies.

After Sam's initial scratch test in which a tiny peanut protein caused a welt the size of a half dollar on his back, I knew our lives would change, that we'd have to watch everything he ate, that he wouldn't be able to eat baked goods from commercial bakeries or any food from Chinese restaurants, that we'd have to ask about anything he ate that we didn't make ourselves because peanut butter is often used to thicken sauces and peanut oil is occasionally used in restaurant cooking.  I knew he'd never run around and play with a child who had just eaten a peanut butter sandwich.  And I knew he'd have to always carry an epi-pen in case of a severe, rapid-onset reaction called anaphylaxis which results in sudden throat swelling and low blood pressure that can be fatal.

I am a mother of small children so I understand how overwhelmed every parent is just remembering the needs of their own children.  I sometimes can't remember my own phone number or where I parked my car, so I completely understand a parent who barely knows my child who doesn't remember that he has a peanut allergy.  I understand that it is MY responsibility to over and over again gently remind those who are around Sam that he can't have peanuts.

But Valentine's Day caught me completely off guard.  The school knows he has a peanut allergy.  The school knows another child in his class has a tree nut allergy.  The school knows food can be a tricky thing for a child with a peanut allergy.  When I received a letter from Sam's teacher giving me a list of children who he would share "Valentines" with, I bought a package of little cards with little heart stickers and temporary tattoos, and Sam and I sat down and wrote his name and the names of his classmates on 21 of them.  The letter didn't mention food.  The letter didn't say anything about candy.  But I have learned my lesson and I now know that "Valentines" means something very different than it did when I was in preschool 40 years ago.  "Valentines" means little card and bag of candy... and an opportunity for the exhausted overwhelmed parents of Sammy's classmates to forget that a child in their class can die if he consumes peanuts.




According to a study released in 2008 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, food allergies result in about 300,000 ambulatory-care visits per year in children.  More than 15% of school aged children with food allergies have had a reaction at school.  And approximately 20-25% of epinephrine administrations in schools involve children whose allergy was unknown at the time of their reaction.  Every year we hear about children who have died in school as a result of something they ate.  And if your child doesn't have a peanut allergy you may not pay any attention.  But when you're the parent of a child with a peanut allergy, news of the preventable death of a child with an allergy triggers fear and anxiety.  It is a good reminder that your child CAN die from a peanut reaction.  It is a good reminder that living with a peanut allergy will require you to step out of your comfort zone and keep reminding people over and over again that you are just one person and you would appreciate their help in keeping your child safe.
 
Here is a great list of 10 things you should remember about food allergies in the classroom.

Valentine's Day was a great lesson for all of us.  I now realize the importance of working with the school to get the word out about my son's allergy, and I now know that I need to be the one responsible for gently, consistently reminding other parents that there is a child in their child's class who can die from peanuts.  I don't blame anyone for forgetting, and I don't blame the school for failing to remind them.  I blame myself for not being more informed about what he encounters at his school and what his school policies are regarding allergies.  But you can bet that has changed.

Sam Becomes a Firefly

I wish I had the time (and energy) to do this milestone justice, but the piles of dirty laundry have reached maximum chaos and the dishwasher needs emptying so I can immediately reload and run it again, and I have breast pump components to wash and boil before I start getting clothes and gym bags and car seats ready for our before-the-sunrise start tomorrow. I wish I had the time to write in detail about Sammy's excitement and the way he cautiously checked out the toys and the fishtank and the cubby with his name on it and the pile of fireflies that needed to be colored and sprinkled with glitter. I wish I had the energy to talk about my own anxiety about making sure everyone in the entire city knew that Sam has a peanut allergy and cannot have peanuts and here is his epi-pen and please, please, please don't ever let him get hurt by anything ever. Ever. :)

But most of all I wish I could share with you all the magical moment when Jamie (Sam's daycare provider) surprised us in the hallway and squatted by him and gave him a big hug and a big smile and made the entire universe seem to come perfectly in to balance for both Sam and me. I say it all the time, that this family would not be possible without this amazing woman who takes care of my children with patience and love every day... and some nights. But words cannot possibly explain how grateful I am for the way she takes care of all of us without even knowing she's doing it.

After I had left Sam alone in the room filled with toddlers and pre-schoolers and Miss Mary (who isn't the teacher we had met the day before) and without any of his friends (who would arrive later), after I had spied the three boxes of cereal and milk and various treats sitting on a table in the middle of all of them and wondered how they actually controlled who ate what, after I had kissed and hugged Sam and watched him walk off to look at the puzzles all by himself, after I slowly walked down the stairs and out to the parking lot, after all of that, I got tears in my eyes. Letting my baby go. [sigh]

The Story of My Coat Pockets

The rocketship Sam built that will carry them "really, super high into space!"

Here’s a little exercise for all you writers out there: Make a list. Any list. And you will find a story. Here is my story, told through a list of items currently in my coat pockets:

A clear plastic Nuk with an orange handle, thrown into my pocket months ago in the hopes that some day my daughter would keep it in her mouth rather than spitting it out at me. Last night at ten minutes to midnight I tried to convince her to take a similar one so that I could sleep without contorting my body and twisting my spine while she nursed. Not sure why I still carry this one in my pocket. Hope. I guess.

A folded up paper bookmark with a little man looking through a gigantic telescope at the words “One World, Many Stories” and a paper coupon from the library’s summer reading program for a free ice cream cone at McDonald’s. “It’s okay,” Sammy said to me when I picked him up from daycare and he handed it to me. “McDonald’s doesn’t have peanuts in the ice cream. We can go there, Mommy. We can. Really. We can go there.”

A little plastic pig that Sam picked up from the floor of the Subaru as we were heading in to the daycare last week. It is about the size of a quarter, and it has amazing detail, including perfectly formed hooves, a kinked tail and eight little teats that hang down from its underside.  Nobody seems to know where it came from and how it ended up in our car. Not even Sam.  Although when I ask Sam where anything (like the popsicle stick in the bathroom or the pile of spaghetti noodles in the living room) came from he usually says “I don’t know, Mommy.”

Kleenex.  Loads of wadded up Kleenex, some shredded from being in there for weeks, some brand new and neatly folded.  I grab some every time I leave the house because there have been more than a few occasions in which one or both of my children have sneezed or spit up or drooled or picked things out of their noses just as we were entering the real world where people don’t look too kindly on goop glistening your upper lip.

My circa 2007 Verizon Wireless Motorola Razor.  The paint is peeling on one side and the back is rubbed down to reveal the white plastic underneath on the other side.  It is worn and used, just like the pants I wear that are too long so that the edges have started to fray or my nursing bras which are so stretched that their elastic no longer really functions and I wonder why I even bother.  No money for new clothes.  No time or money for one of those fancy phones with all the apps.  I barely know what an app is.  When I’m with my kids, I’m with my kids, without all my facebook friends tagging along.

And yet I seem to be bringing all of you.

And despite having what was, I think, my first major hot flash after calling what I thought was a credit card customer service line only to later realize I had read an 8 where it was a 6 because I didn’t use my newly-acquired reading glasses when I looked up the number, I am NOT as old and worn out as all this sounds.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

(This story originally appeared here.)

And here are some completely unrelated photos from the last few weeks...

Eva and her friend Stella

Sam and his friend Hamilton

Eva loves Sammy's legos

Sam does some art at Bea's 1st birthday party

Eva's beautiful friend Tara

The pool on the deck

A Blip on a Radar Screen

Last week I ventured out for our first social function as a family of three. I dressed Sam in his Packer jersey and wrapped Eva in yellow and green. I changed my own clothes a dozen times trying to find something that would make me hate my post-pregnancy body less. I filled the diaper bag with Size-One Pampers and a thick stack of wipes and a bottle of breastmilk and a change of clothes for both children and the camera with a fully charged battery. I always charge the battery before Sam and Lucy get together.

“I love her, mommy. She is my best friend,” Sam had told me the night before as we wrapped her birthday present and made her card.

When we got into the car to head to the party I wasn’t even thinking about Sam’s peanut allergy. I was taking deep breaths and trying to remind myself that it was going to be okay, that I could handle two children out in the world, that if Kate Gosselin can manage eight, I can certainly manage two…especially when one of them can’t walk.

We climbed the steps of the lodge that Lucy’s parents had rented for the party. Sammy held on to the railing with one hand and carried Lucy’s present with the other. (“Can I help her open it, Mommy?”) I carried Eva and the diaper bag. We entered a party filled with soft lighting and pink lollipops and strawberry frosting and toddlers running in every direction. Lucy greeted us as only Lucy can –sure and confident and approachable –and Sam’s fist immediately gripped the material of my pantsleg. He gave her the present and we hung our coats on the back of a chair.

Eva slept contentedly in the car seat bucket under the pink blanket I’d gotten from the hospital and I tried to encourage Sam to go run with the other kids. I pointed out Gedion and Arie and Quinn, all racing in circles. Sam leaned his head against my leg and said nothing. I told him I was going to catch him, and we chased each other for a while until he was comfortable going off on his own, hiding with the other kids behind the stacks of folding chairs leaned against one wall. I sat near Eva and wondered how anyone could sleep with all the noise. And when Sam sat down to drink pink lemonade out of the can and eat Nerds and Smarties out of the box, I wasn’t thinking about the half-dollar-sized welt a tiny piece of peanut protein had raised on his back six months earlier and the way the doctor had said “Imagine that happening to his throat.” I was listening to Lucy explain that Arie was from the neighborhood and Nora was from Wednesday night Daddy and Me and that girl over there was from Montessori.

And this is where everything becomes a blur for me. I know lollipop centerpieces stood in the middle of every table, and lollipop cookies on sticks were laid out near the kitchen, and in the corner was a gorgeous cake with delicious strawberry frosting. And there were shiny white plates with silver piping around the edges. And the entire room smelled of warm spices and fresh baked bread. But that’s all I really remember in detail after that.

 “Hey, Sammy. Go get some treats,” Gedion’s dad said. “Did you see the chocolate covered peanuts?”

 And some kind of anxiety that I have never experienced before shot through me. “Peanuts? There are peanuts here?” I said. “Sammy can’t have peanuts.”

“Oh that’s right,” Gedion’s mom said.

This is the point in the story where I should have stopped and thought to myself, “Okay, find the peanuts and see if we can put them away.”

But I didn’t.

Instead my postpartum hormones took over and I rushed around the room and pushed the peanuts back from the edge of the table and sighed and sweated and hoped that none of the twenty sprinting toddlers would be eating them or carrying them or rubbing them on Sam’s skin. Instead I hovered near Sam all night and thought of his cousin who had gone to the hospital after a peanut reaction…from a kiss. Instead my heart raced and sweat ran down my chest and I had to take off my gray and green Packer sweatshirt. Instead I sat in a chair by the door and felt the enormity of my life fold in on me.

I wanted to leave. I wanted to go home and pull myself into a cocoon and protect my son from peanuts, protect myself from chaos, protect myself from life. But I didn’t.

Here’s the thing I did do right: I stayed. I let my son climb on the metal chairs and roll the balls on the pool table and spin the rods on the fuseball table. I let him eat too much sugar and drink too much pop and lick too much frosting off cake he didn’t really want. I let Sammy be a kid.

The next day at work I talked to a friend whose 11-year-old son has lived with allergies since he was a baby. When Sam was first diagnosed she had given me books and links and advice on Epi-pens and which kind of Benadryl to keep in my purse. She had talked to me about medicalert bracelets and immunotherapy. She had warned me about Dairy Queen and Chinese food and ice cream processed in facilities that process peanuts. The day after Lucy’s party I asked Laura how to handle such a situation, how she deals with it, what she would have done.

“What you have to realize, Barb,” she said, “is that even though Sam’s peanut allergy is very real and very scary to you, it is not even a blip on the radar screen to other people.” She told me to think of all that I had to do to get ready for Sam’s party last month, to think of all the things I had to remember and manage. She reminded me that other people are in the same place dealing with their families, raising their own children, doing the best job they can.

Lucy’s parents love Sammy and they would never do anything to harm him. And he is so much more than a blip on a radar screen to them. They are bend-over-backwards kind and generous to both Sammy and me. They are bend-over-backwards generous to everyone. And they had made sure all the other food they served, including the cake, was peanut-free. But our first outing as a family of three reminded me that I, alone, am fully responsible for my son; I, alone, need to pay attention. I wasn’t prepared for how out of control life could feel when there are two children and one mommy and a body full of post-partum hormones, but with the first adventure out of the way and many lessons learned, I think we’re going to be just fine.

(This story originally appeared on thenextfamily.com)

What Happens When You Mess with Me

Painting Saturday morning

"Get in the car, Mommy. I'm driving and we're all packed for our trip to TT's."

“Please!!! I want it.”

“No.”

“But candy makes you big and strong.”

“No it doesn’t. It makes you big and fat.”

“I want to be big and fat. I want to NOW!”

Sam and the birthday girl

This blog post is likely to be a mess. This is one of those weeks where I have to decide once again what type of blog I want this to be.

Do I want to share the story of being the mom of two great kids who enlarge my heart everyday? (“Mommy, I love you as much as a train is long.”)

Do I want to use the blog to record the hilarious dialogue of an inquisitive 3-year-old? (“Mommy, what are those flags on that truck?” “Those are mud flaps. They keep the mud from flying up.” “Those ones are covered with skunk poop.”)

Real Little Men Eat Quiche (and help make it)

Do I want to use the blog to share with the world the transitions I’m going through as a choice mom doing it on my own? (I’d forgotten how really isolating those first few months with a newborn can be.)

Do I want to talk about the great lesson I learned this week about how my child’s peanut allergy, though scary and huge and real to me, is not really (and shouldn't be) a blip on the radar of other parents who have their hands full taking care of their own children? (Duh, Barb, though it seems YOUR life revolves around your children, the rest of the world has another center.)

Play-doh

Making Ornaments for next year's christmas tree

Life with children is messy and complicated and challenging, but every single day I navigate the mess and endure the treadmill of domestic chores (just a tip, if you put ricotta cheese in the microwave to heat it and plop it onto your child’s noodles to stop his i-must-have-cheese-induced meltdown before it escalates, cover the bowl) and try to block the incessant whining of an overtired 3-year-old who is still, I’m sure, adjusting to this “Baby Sister Thing.” And in the midst of all that messiness I frequently find moments of pure joy (“Mommy, I think there’s a spider on my leg. Can you do that spider on my leg thing?”) and incredible gratitude (“Mommy why are you mad at that guy?” “Because he is driving really, really slow down the middle of the road.” “It’s okay, Mommy. He can do that. He can.”). So this week I am so overwhelmed with how to tie together everything that is spinning in my brain that I am just sharing some pictures of the messes that Sammy and I made and cleaned up during this past weekend. After all, that’s what being the mother of a 3-year-old is all about… making and cleaning up messes.

Making some art for TT

Building shelving for the playroom

What Eva does while we're making messes

What happens when Sam doesn't nap at daycare

Duckies and Worms with Blue Wings

Whenever TT and Sam spend a weekend together, I wish I could burn every moment into my brain. There are so many moments I want to carry with me and never forget. But then she visits again and there are new moments and new memories and time just moves so fast.



Despite my initial crabbiness (which is usually borne out of a desire to maintain control over food intake, especially now that Sam has been diagnosed with a peanut allergy, even though control is not possible when TT and Sam are together) we had a great weekend full of non-crabby moments that made me laugh and smile and feel grateful. At the farmer's market Sam helped TT pick out fresh green beans and black raspberries and zucchini twisted off the vine that morning. He handed the woman behind the table carrots and beets and kohlrabi and plump red tomatoes. At Piggly Wiggly he followed TT around the store, placing each item she gave him into the cart and helping her by presenting money to the cashier and waiting for his $4.52 in change. Each morning he ran to her room ("TT, Wake up! TT Wake up!") and they lay in bed reading Elmo's adventures and The Truck Book and Curious George. TT would ask what something was and Sammy would say "Duckie!" TT would say "Nooooooo!" and they'd laugh together hysterically and move on to the next picture.
"What's that?"
"Duckies!"
"Nooooooooooooo!"
Even from the other room the laughter was contagious.



While I napped on the couch they made potato salad, chopping the potatoes, peeling the eggs, and mixing it all together in a giant stainless steel bowl that rang out with each strike of the knife. Sam was covered with mashed potatoes and his breath smelled of cucumbers when he presented me with a small bowl of creamy potato salad to taste. "The best ever!" he said.



They ventured out into the rain to pick fresh green peppers and tiny red raspberries and parsley for our dinner, and Sam came inside to draw pictures of the garden... full of ants and weeds and "worms with blue wings." They threw blankets over their heads and pretended to be monsters or dinosaurs or giant scary animals. They folded and sorted and put away laundry, most of Sammy's ending up in a pile in the living room. They stood outside on the front porch and watched the rain and examined the animal poop on the aluminum threshold. They chased each other around the yard, down to the tree and back, around the house and into the driveway. They snuggled up on the big white chair and watched Backyardigans and The Fresh Beat Band, Sam jumping up to dance along with Mommy when the Yo Gabba Gabba crew did their dancy dance.

Even now I know there are moments I've already forgotten. How do we slow this all down?