We’re staying in a hotel tonight.  The kids were in the hotel pool, working off all that pent-up energy from eight hours in the car.  All four of them were calling to me, “Watch me, Mama!  Watch me!  Look what I can do.”

Of course, they were all four very impressive in their swimming and splashing skills.

As I was watching them I realized something.  No matter how old we are, there is still a child inside us calling to Mama or Daddy “Watch me!  Look what I can do!”.

And you don’t stop calling that to your daddy just because he dies.

We were all just chatting and Boyo had this to say:

“If you play in the mud – the *wet* mud – you will get wet and muddy.

Words to live by, if you ask me.

Handsome and Boyo were having breakfast this morning (waffles made by Big Girl) while Princess and I were getting some tea ready for Kitty, who isn’t feeling well.  Princess and I were talking about reading as she was trying to read the tea cannister, and how much she wants to learn to spell words.  I told her we would work on that, and then told Handsome that I noticed Big Girl needed some work on her ‘nyms.

Handsome: Like homonyms.

Me: Yes, and syntonyms and antonymns and

Boyo:  M&M’s!

Yesterday I was doing lessons with Big Girl and Kitty.  Princess and Boyo had been playing in the family room and had made a mess, so after I did lessons with them, I told them they needed go to pick up what they had gotten out.

They headed back in there and Princess set to work.  Boyo set to play.  Princess corrected him and said, “Mama sent us in here to pick up.”

Boyo replied, “That’s not my understanding.”

Princess screeched, “What!”

Boyo calmly repeats, “That’s not my understanding.”

Silence.

Then:  “Well, it’s MY understanding!  And you better get to work!”

I remember being seven or so

and, realizing the mortality of my parents,

sobbed with the horror of it.

long away and far ago

Now my father’s boots are in my son’s closet,

his shirt a stuffed pillow on my daughter’s bed.

I see his things and realize his mortality and

inside I weep with the horror of it.

What is worse,

seeing his boots without him here to fill them

or having nothing left to prove he ever was?