Coffee

we had VBS. then last week we had 5-day club. these have to be intrinsically good becuase the gospel is shared, but they wore me out like nobody's business.
and so i woke up on thursday a little earlier than usual (i'm a sleeping in kind of mama, and i have mostly sleeping in kind of boys), with just one awake, and i almost didn't know what to do.
almost.
but i did what any sane mom would do: i made coffee in the christmas present keurig, poured my creamer and sugar in, stirred til it swirled, and i took a hot sip of coffee.  such a small pleasure to be such a languishing victory.
i wish i could say i read my bible or prayed beyond the popcorn prayers i've been offering when certain people enter my mind, but i did sit, quietly before the clamor of three more boys came in offering dream recounting, diapers needing changes, and breakfast served right up.

the rest of the coffee usually swirls to tepid, and by then the day is too hot to care anymore, but for 30 minutes i enveloped the warm silence.

i'm late in joining, but michelle is having a graceful summer series. join us?

Where the wild things exist

a mother i don't know
told her daughter to save
room
in her world
for the
untamed
things

and

there is no
thing
as wild
and reckless
as love

(i don't think)

but some people
are
afraid

and weed them
out

i have

(i think)

is my heart
ALIVE
enough
to hold all the
tame, calm creatures
as well as
the wild that exists
in darker forests,
higher mountains,
eery oceans,
and vaster plains
than i'll
ever
know?

to love a wild thing
is a secret
inside

linking for the first time in a long time with emily and a whole wild community of imperfection

Trickle

i have a 13 month old taking his nightly nap on my lap, his arms folded ann geddes-style under his chin, his eyelashes are black feathers on a pink cheek, and his feet are almost as long as my hands. he's growing too quickly.

my connor has become an artist almost overnight, and i don't even know how to tell you what this does to my soul. it has made me fall a little more deeply in love with his blues (i wonder if his all blue see the world differently than mine, all brown?) and his imp-dimple, and his limber little legs. there is a story for every drawing (mostly bombs and fish, lately), and a smile for every time i ask him, "tell me about it?"

shea, so close to six he can't stand it, squints his eyes a lot, and we think he might need glasses, but he's already shocked me by his right vision, how he already knows that jesus died for him because He loves him, and he knows that we need to be perfect again one day. that we will be. he trusts this so fully i'm humbled. i want to ask him how he came to trust so well.

little-yet-not mr avery, how he makes my heart swell with his golden spirit. his curls wooed me like his bobbing bottom when he was a baby, but now i wonder my love at him because of how he loves: with every fiber of his being. he apologizes for being sad, he wants the whole world to know he exists, and he wants most of all to laugh with you, and hug you, and make the world okay.

these boys of mine, they are pieces of me, aren't they? the story-boy, the literalist, the people lover, even the baby who knows his securities.

slowly, i am emerging from this hollow place i've been. i feel words trying to trickle back inside of me, outside of me.