(Pasta vegetable soup with pesto and freshly grated parmesan cheese
on top with hot homemade wheat bread)
4:30 p.m.
I had just started the preparations for the above meal this afternoon. Both boys were still quiet from their room upstairs where they were napping. I had put Mia down in the front room so I could knead bread on the kitchen counter. All was quiet. Before long, I had a baby crying full tilt in the front room and could hear one of my sons, from his room, singing at the top of his lungs. Here I am, a few more minutes to go with this kneading business, and the next thing always calling me. And I thought to myself, kind of with a smile,
"Well, I have children."
**********
5:45 p.m.
I am standing at the back door, bread baking in the oven, soup steeping on the stove, almost ready to add the beans and then the noodles at the end. I am trying to soothe my baby, rocking her back and forth, amidst the loud yells of "Raaaaar! Raaaar!" by the boys, running around and chasing each other, giggling. I stand by the back door, looking out into the cold oncoming evening, the white silhouetted trees from the recent storm. I watch the fog settling in, lower and lower on the mountains. The cold gray air. Perfect. Just perfect. Hot food. Cold night out.
**********
5:50 p.m.
I am in the front room and Benji is throwing his bear up and down in the air. Bear falls and hits the poinsettia plant and smacks a nice stem right off the plant, onto the table. He turns around, lets out a quick, "Oh!" (insert: carefree "whoops"). Picks up bear. Throws him up into the air again. I think about the carefree sense of childhood and how lovely it is. I am sitting in the chair, watching him and his brother, holding little Mia to my face. She is sucking my lip (which she prefers to anything else), and I watch her fall asleep, her eyes lazily droop and then close. Feels like there is a frog in my chest and my heart is swollen as my eyes fill. I nestle in and rub my cheek against hers. I watch the snow fall ever-so-slowly in the light of the street lamp outside the front window.
**********
5:55 p.m.
I listen to the boys, Benji bossing his brother to "Leave it!," only to have Isaiah turn around and go to give him a kiss. Then, I watch as Benji kisses the top of Isaiah's head.
**********
Yes, I have children...
...and it makes me plum happy.
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