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.