SEVEN???

Happy Birthday, Alex!

This morning you did the funniest thing. Abby had already gotten you up because she was excited to be the first to wish you a happy birthday. You two were downstairs rummaging for clean clothes and you said, "Let's check" and held out your arms for a measuring hug. I sensed a little disappointment, but it didn't last long after you noted, "It doesn't feel much different." Funny boy.

You were thrilled to help put together your class birthday treat last night, and you were excited to show it to your teacher and classmates. Not a single crumb came home, so it must have been a hit. Nice selection.

I can always count on you to make a selfless decision when you're given the chance to make your own choice. When Dad almost had to work this evening and miss your birthday waffle & sausage dinner (plus cake & presents), you were really sad until he suggested that maybe you could go do something special later with him. Thanks for being willing to let him go do what he needed to do. Your huge smile nearly brought tears to my eyes when you found out he didn't have to go.

You've always been like that, though. Even before you were born. At 37 weeks you were sitting contentedly upright in my belly, not upside-down like you were supposed to. I sat with headphones in my lap for a couple of days and even tried turning myself upside-down. (Besides being a feat to get myself there on the couch, I almost suffocated once your baby weight was pressing on my lungs. That didn't last long.) You never did turn, so your Dad & I went in to have someone turn me into human play-doh and try to move you from the outside. Lo and behold, you had turned overnight. I didn't even notice it!

You talked when you were good & ready, you potty-trained when you wanted to. When you were small and Abby swiped a toy, you'd scream and yell about it. But after I intervened & gave the toy back to you so she could ask nicely, you happily gave it to her.

Perfectly willing to cooperate...on your own terms.

You've always been on the small end of things. I think it's because when you were a baby, you wanted to eat on your own terms. You wouldn't eat baby food unless you could control the spoon. By yourself! So we sort of skipped the baby food stage, and you went straight to finger foods, even though you didn't have teeth yet! Just before you started kindergarten, I told your Aunt Carin that I was concerned about you being so small. Her response changed my whole understanding of you: "Yeah, but only on the outside."

She was right. Not including your body, all of you is big: you think big, you feel big, you love big, you play big, you have big expectations and big frustrations. You feel all of your emotions to their fullest, and I love watching that.

Alex, you bring peace and joy to my soul.

You are kind, loving, selfless, giving, happy, obedient, helpful, smart, funny and such a handsome guy!

(It's no wonder that you're Cora's favorite.)

Even if you never do grow to be very large, you'll always fill my heart.

I'm not dead...yet!

Today my sister posted that she's going through blog withdrawal. I've been very conscious that it's been weeks since I posted anything, and I'm trying to figure out why.

Maybe it's because...

...my boss has once again raised the axe above my job status and reminded me that I need to do ALL of the agreed-upon parts of my job, in addition to the other requirements that have been added 1 or 4 at a time over the last 6 years. Back to walking the property picking up trash daily (with kids), vacuuming the 3-story secure building & washing windows weekly (with kids) PLUS mailing monthly renewal letters PLUS emailing certain things on 4 certain dates during the month PLUS scanning & emailing documents to her 2-3 times a month PLUS PLUS PLUS... Oh, and when people come to the door, close it behind me because my house is too messy for potential tenants to see.

...I've been trying to get some semblance of an exercise schedule down because in less than 6 weeks I'm doing the 3-mile running leg of a mini-triathlon. (I can't currently run more than 1.5 miles at a time, and there'd better be no uphills!)

...we've recently implemented a new positive-reinforcement discipline strategy with the children in order to combat the craziness that is my home.

...Thursday mornings now find me sitting in on Abby's math lesson so I know what the HECK they're teaching so I can help her when she's lost in her homework that afternoon. (last week it was right, acute and obtuse triangles followed by equilateral, isosceles and scalene triangles. i.n. t.h.i.r.d. g.r.a.d.e.)

...her teacher and I have been meeting, emailing and rallying the troops to get down to the bottom of why on earth Abby won't ask for help, contribute in class, finish her homework and complete any sort of project in a reasonable amount of time. It's involving meeting after school 1-2 times per week with the school's math specialist and even with the school counselor! Figure it out and try our darnedest to start remedying it.

...my husband is home from his working-abroad stint which means that I'm spending more time with him in the evenings, instead of with my keyboard and glowing monitor.

That just might be it.

This month could be better. Or worse. So far:

June 1--be surprised that it's already June. I think we skipped a couple of months since January.

June 3--do the math & realize that I need to plan 2 birthday parties...like NOW. love evite all over again.

June 4--purchase bridal shower gift, get so soaked in the rain that the handle pops out of the Crate & Barrel box. really.

June 4--stay up until 4:00 in the morning with coughing, wheezing baby. sleep mostly upright with baby on my torso so she can breathe.

June 5--make Saturday appointment for hubby to take baby to doc

June 5--attend bridal shower

June 5--sign new lease

June 6--visit with mil & step fil for a few hours on their whirlwind grandkid-visiting weekend

June 7--deposit remainder of rent & post notices for any unpaid

June 8--go to school early to set up kid-sized tepee & tent in Alex's classroom for Camp Learned A Lot

June 8--make cool cookie/frosting/licorice centipede to take to Alex's class tomorrow

June 9--Alex's 7th birthday (get gifts & make cake prior)

June 9--possibly skip church ladies' group evening of book sharing and strawberry shortcake...we'll see... I really deserve that shortcake by now.

June 10--take birthday treats to Abby's class because June 27th is after school's out

June 10--attend Abby's class's musical production of The Internal Organ Hall of Fame

June 10--take hubby to the evening production, too

June 11--field trip with Alex's class to the park. take younger kids with. yay!!

June 7-11--prepare for big party I'm throwing that was supposed to be in May because June is way too crazy but key characters were a) out of the state b) out of the country c) having a baby d) all of the above. yeesh! (don't feel guilty, aubrey. your mother's hip replacement is much more important than my insanity, and I'm glad it went well.)

June 12--sign new lease

June 12--start showing apartments that haven't been vacated yet

June 12--set up for & enjoy party, see friends I haven't seen in a few years

June 14-16--plan 2 birthday parties: outdoor-activities for boys & kitchen science for girls

June 15--sign new lease (will someone please tell my boss that I'm rockin' my job?)

June 15--man the egg-on-a-spoon booth at field day

June 16--take veggies to Alex's end-of-year pizza party

June 16--Alex's birthday party

June 17--last day of school

June 17--Abby's birthday party (yes, they're back-to-back. sometimes it's easier that way.)

June 19--attend baby shower

June 19--sign new lease (hello?? 4 leases in a MONTH???)

June 20--Father's Day, get with friends & have missionaries over for dinner

June 21-26--take a very, very small breather

June 25--head to Spokane for Hoopfest

June 27--Abby's 9th birthday (have gifts & cake arranged prior)

June 27--come home... or maybe we'll just stay forever... It's too crazy at my house!

'One of these things is not like the other.'

Imagine for a moment that you are in a room full of 6-year-olds. Now imagine that you ask for one volunteer to go to Disneyland with you. It's easy to envision the excited cacophony that would ensue, each first-grader jumping, squealing, raising his or her hand high enough to (nearly) grab a handful of moon rocks. They so badly want to be the chosen one.

It's kind of like that every time I walk in my front door. Except my willing participants are not excited kiddos, but tasks yelling at me to be completed. It makes it rather difficult to look forward to coming home from anything. Friday morning I dropped off Lee and his preschool carpool-mate Lily to have their heads filled with wondrous things by someone other than their mothers. A few blocks from home I started the process of deciding what I'd do with the two hours of 'free' time that I had in front of me. There were so many options to consider that I did the best thing I know: I made a list.

Possible things to do before the preschool pickup:
-shower
-shave
-kitchen
-walk through now-vacant apartment 404
-check rent
-ready deposit
-go to bank
-pick up YMCA enrollment paperwork
-drop off 6 big boxes of donations at the church parking lot across town
-11:10 preschool show
-vacuum living room
-plant primroses that have been waiting over a month to go into the planter box on the property
-weed the front bed
-balance checkbook
-load 6 big, heavy boxes into the van
-vacuum property common areas
-walk grounds to pick up trash
-post online ad for Riah's van
-balance checkbook
-pay bills
-pick up priority mail boxes at post office for ebay stuff
-plan healthy menu
-vacuum last-last-weekend sand from van and remove towels we've been sitting on
-gather tax info to file (we extended)
-remove dead rat under the porch (thanks, neighborhood cat)

In a way, the list is daunting. It's nowhere near my insanely overwhelming Master List of Things to Do, but it's relieving that these are merely options of things I could choose to do in this short amount of time, not things required to complete by a certain time. There's no way that they'll all get done, but they all sit and holler at me to be completed. All day, every day they and their Things to Do compadres yell at me to be worked on. Sometimes I just want to stick my fingers in my ears, close my eyes and scream at the top of my lungs for them all to just shut up. Except we don't say that at our house. It's not kind.

Here's what DID get done:
-shower
-shave
-tumble back seat and shove 6 big boxes into back of van
-check rent
-ready deposit
-walk through now-vacant apartment 404
-call tenant to notify her of the apartment's condition
-call power company to put power in business name
-call tenant to ask that she take power out of her name the day she moved, not a week prior
-call tenant right back because I forgot to get her forwarding address
-call blind company to find out why they charged us for a vertical blind header repair and replacement
-show tenant in 502 where the extra storage is
-rearrange 3 storage units so that I'm taking up only 2
-move shelves out of the unit 502 wants to put into my bedroom (yay!)
-sweep out that storage unit
-begin to remove moving boxes, coat hooks and full-length mirror from 404
-go down to maintenance office to find fully-charged drill to finish the job
-notice that it's 11:00
-drop everything and go to preschool show
-drive across town to drop off boxes
-wait a bit because the trailer's not there yet (we were 20 minutes early)
-kill time at Subway getting lunch
-make note to never, ever feed Cora a part of a sub with too much mustard in a restaurant booth
-clean up the best I can
-be thankful I'm wearing black jeans that don't show mustard...much
-go back to church to drop boxes
-pick up YMCA membership paperwork
-go back to church to drop boxes
-wait for truck to bring trailer
-get call on cell from Wendy at 12:20
-rush home to get fax for the tenant she's moving in 10 minutes

Okay, the boxes never did get dropped off, as the trailer never did show up. I eventually had to rearrange them to un-tumble my back seat so I could pick up Abby from Student Council meeting, after which I eventually deposited the rent checks. You may have noticed that List A did not precisely match List B.

My life kinda works like that. Every day. I did get 7 things from List A finished. The others weren't on that list, but they were either already on the Master List or were about to add themselves. Some tasks jump to the top because they are a high priority (clearing up the mis-billing), others get chosen for reasons inexplicable (like blogging right now).

As I sit and think about my list of today's possibles, I wonder: how do I get picked to go to Disneyland?

Full circle with a twist

One of my favorite things about being a mom is listening to the kids play. I love hearing pretend diabolical plots unfold, personal experiences and issues emerge and creativity blossom. When they get to a certain age it sounds something like this:

"Let's say my name is Fire Ninja because I can fight with fire with my Fire Powers."
"And my name is Ice Ninja because I have Ice Powers."
"Yeah, and I was captured by the bad guys so you have to save me. 'Ice Ninja! I'm over here! The bad guys captured me! Come save me!'"
"And I freed you (you're free), but when I was getting you out of being captured the bad guys captured me and took me over here and put me in a jail made of lava."
"And because it was so hot you couldn't use your Ice Powers, but I can use my Fire Powers (enter verbal sound effect of the Fire Powers), so I saved you and we got away..."

What I especially love is the "and you said" part, followed by the other person actually saying those exact words. But I think the underlying reason I love it is because I did the exact same thing! We even had powers and bad guys and there was almost always lava! Admit it. You did it too.

Like jinxing and rock-paper-scissors, it's one of those things that gets passed on from kid to kid (not parent to child) with very minimal changes.

But the other day as I stepped outside to check on my monkeys I overheard a play conversation between a couple of the neighbor kids:

Sheri, carrying a bag of mini-marshmallows: "And I texted you to ask if you want a snack."
Mike, standing about 20 feet away and responding on a pretend phone: "And I texted you back 'not yet.'"
"And I texted that I'll be over here when you want it."
"And I texted you 'okay.'"

Even re-reading it it makes me chuckle. Naturally play reflects real life, but it's still funny to me. What will parents overhear in a hundred years?

"And I got in my hover car, but the dilithium crystals were gone."
"And you said, 'Now I can't steer my hover car.'"
"Now I can't steer my hover car, and the bad guys are right above us."
"But if you go down you'll fall in the lava."
"So I use my Wind Powers to blow us over the lava."
"And your Wind Powers blow lava on the bad guys so we're safe."

Duo-lly Noted

Dear Po,


I love your movie. I love nearly every single nanosecond of it. Except one part.

Did you really have to go there? Now my boys (especially my 4-year-old) run around the house, yelling, "OH, MY TENDERS!!!" A shot to the gut or face would have sufficed, in my humble opinion.

Sincerely,
An Over-Tenderized Mom

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dear Boys,

I realize that particular part of the movie is funny. I also realize that your father nearly needed CPR from laughing so hard the first time or two that he watched it. And I really, really realize that your not-yet-manly parts are vital to you in ways that you have not yet even begun to realize.

I understand that you are boys, and that part of being a boy is--ah...bodily awareness. So are throwing rocks into water and turning anything imaginable into a gun. But I'm very tired of hearing the words 'tenders' and 'weenie' when you are playing. Enough already.

And that goes for you, too, sis.

Love,
Your Tender-Hearted, Weenie-Roasting Mother

My own little zoo...

I was at the park today with my two youngest. I watched a man release the leash of his Jack Russell Terrier just long enough for the dog to terrorize the too-tame city ducks, sending them to wing in a flurry of ducky panic.

Honestly, we were headed to do the same thing, but the dog beat Lee to it by about 45 seconds. In the few moments it took for the dog to clear the grass of ducks, I had an epiphany:

Lee is my Jack Russell Terrier.



He is cute, smart, funny, active, and if he doesn't have a constructive, positive outlet for his energy, he destroys things.

That got me to thinking. What animal personalities would personify my other children?

Alex was the next easiest. He would be a Labrador/Rottweiller mix. I've always mused that he and my sister's golden lab are kindred spirits; he's intelligent, happy, loves to play, loves to please and thrives on a good belly rub--I mean, snuggle. But even as I type this he's upstairs screaming in fury at Lee, which doesn't really exude Labrador. So even though I adore Carl, there's a bit of Rott in there to explain his sometimes fiery temper.


Yeah, I know it's a Retriever. Close enough.


Abby would have to be an African Grey Parrot. She's beautiful--though not flashy, loyal, smarter than the dickens, doesn't perform on command and can tend toward the talkative.

At first I pegged Cora as a kitten: cute, active, quiet, inquisitive...but then I thought better. The adorability, mischievous smarts and quiet activity that teeters precariously between curious learning and plain ol' stinkerhood is more accurately embodied in a Capuchin Monkey.

Wonder what I would be...

(Thanks to bing search for online images.)

Weekend in San Juan--Part II: The Bright Side

As promised (though as it turns out it's less regaling, more recounting and rather long):

We've been missing Riah during the weeks ever since he started working up north. He wanted us to come visit & see the beauty that he sees all around him every day, so we did.

Overall, I was prepared. Of course, I made lists: lists of things to eat, lists of things to take to Riah, lists of clothes to take, lists of other things to remember...lots of beautiful, organized, categorized lists. I listed listy. Friday morning dawned early and I got up with it to bake, cook, clean and pack. I posted a picture/word list of things for the children to gather (two pants, 3 pairs of underwear...etc), complete with boxes for each of them to check off when they're done. They love that.

My goal was to pull away at noon, and I would have almost made it, except that the dumb battery was dead. So I ran (literally) to a friend's apartment, borrowed her keys, jumped my van, ran the keys back and was on the road at 12:17. Not bad. The grocery store stop was really, really fast, we skipped the gas stop and kept going. The ferry terminal is just on the other side of Anacortes, and I was confident that we'd make the 2:45 ferry. Cora was screaming because she was sick & tired of being stuck in her seat. Just this side of Anacortes, however, we found out that she really was sick--carsick. Gross. But we were so close to the ferry that I didn't stop; we could clean her up there. (Are you nominating me for the mom-of-the-year award yet?) It turns out that she really was sick & tired, because after she tossed her Lunchable (no cookies) she fell asleep in her muck. Grossity gross.

We pulled in just before 2:15 and I told the lady in the booth that we wanted the 2:45 to San Juan Island. I think she laughed inside when she responded that if I wanted that, I'd need to be here at least an hour early. The next boat was 4:35. You're kidding. One of my children just fell asleep (albeit in her own barf) and you expect me to keep the rest of them contained, quiet and alive while we wait for TWO HOURS?????

Years and years and years ago back in the olden days when I was a teenager, my family took the same ferry to the same island to go whale watching. We ran into the same problem: missed the boat, gotta' wait. We couldn't go outside, though because there was a frigid wind blowing hard. But we could only take so much sitting in the car. My brother, who's always been a little...umm...different...(he's 2 years younger than I) sorta' lost it. The cabin fever and frustration and boredom took control and to this day we laugh at the memory of him climbing up onto the roof of the car and crowing at the birds. It was funny and frightening all at the same time. Fortunately this time the weather was nicer and we didn't have any lapses of sanity.

After we parked in line for the later boat we made our bathroom trips (one was a sprint and a trip, complete with a bloody knee), cleaned up the now-awake Cora, changed her clothes, put her carseat on top of the car to dry in the sun and wind (really intended to get a picture of that...would've been a great photo of the beginning of our adventures) and went to the beach.

The children were of course, asked to stay dry. We only had 2-3 pairs of pants per person for the whole weekend. Cora, evidently didn't get the memo.

pair of pants #2

She did, however, have a great time throwing rocks & sand in the water.

Lee was in heaven, taking his own sweet time walking up the beach throwing rocks. (How I don't have pictures of it is beyond me. I know I took some!)

Alex walked way up the beach on his own, throwing rocks and being himself. (I'm beginning to see a trend here.)

Abby was the only non-rock-thrower in the group, because she had quest: to find sand suitable to build a sand castle. With a little help from yours truly after I'd given up on keeping Cora dry, she achieved her goal.

I tried to get as many good pictures as I could. It's funny, though, how the best ones are the ones that happen with little to no help at all.

Even though I was bummed that we missed time with my sweetheart, I am glad that we had that beach time. It was great. We got back to the car with just enough time to change Cora's clothes again and it was almost time to load, so I forgot to take a picture of the carseat. We were finally off!

I love riding ferries. Even if it's chilly, I love to stand out on the bow, soak in the gorgeous scenery and let the wind blow new life into my soul. My children love ferries, too. They love the wind, the water, the birds, the seats, the vending machines, the bathrooms, the upper deck...everything! I explored a ferry more thoroughly that Friday afternoon that I ever had in my life!

You may notice that in order to preserve pants,I just put her in jammies. She later leaked out of them. Glad I had a 2nd pair.

By the time we docked we were really excited to see Dad. We met up with him and followed him to the trailer that would become our weekend home. (He'd been staying in an old Silver Bullet with two of the other guys that he's working with, but the thing's a dump. Through the church members on the island he found a newer, cleaner trailer to move into, just in time to have us move with him. The family that was using had 4 kids and had been staying in it until their house was finished; they had just moved out of it. It was perfect!) The super-long trailer had a queen-sized sleep number bed in one end, and the other end had been retrofitted with 4 bunkbeds!! The kids loved them.

There was a fire pit outside, a clean hot shower with a tankless water heater...I could live like that while I built a house. The kids helped Dad unload scrap wood from the job site for the fire pit. Way more than we would ever need, but they enjoyed helping.

We didn't dock until 6:00, so bedtime came way, way too late that night. Saturday, however, was fun.

Some of our fun was planned, some wasn't. A neighbor of Riah's from the Silver Bullet (which is a 4-minute walk from the clean trailer) had met the kids Friday night when they went to borrow some salt; she invited them back the next day to feed the cows. As much as I didn't want to share my Riah time with anyone else, she was generous and the kids really had a good time.

On our way to Lime Kiln Park, the best place to watch whales from the shore, we stopped so Riah could treat us to the island's donuts. Little, light, donuts. Oh, wait, no. These are big, heavy, dense buttermilk donuts.

(Quite concidentally, he saw a teenager in the store that he recognized from the church there. He needed someone to jump his car.) The kids shared a ginormous cinnamon roll, which didn't combine well with the curvy roads. Alex started in with his trademark pre-carsick whining and we found a place to turn off real quick. It ended up to be one of the best mid-trip stops that I've ever taken!

The turnout was actually a parking area for a little trail through an area that SJ citizens had bought to preserve the wildflowers.

(That's Victoria in the background.)

"Daddy, Daddy, wait for me!"

We just loved exploring the rocks.

I learned that Abby has inherited her mother's mountain-goat-like proclivity for rock-hopping. Even though she made me nervous and I tried to rein her in, I totally understood the desire to climb higher, race faster and explore further. Totally and completely.

And she tried to climb every single tree that she could.

Later in the day when we actually made it to LK park, we found out that we're about a month early to see the orcas. It was a little disappointing, and the wind was cold, but we still had fun. Riah took the kids down on the rocks below the lighthouse, where Abby accidentally kicked the shell off of one of the hugest barnacles I'd ever seen. I've tried & tried to see the inside of a barnacle to no avail. She did it, but threw the shell in the sea.

Poor Cora. Her nap schedule had been interrupted so many times on this trip. When he was done exploring below the lighthouse rocks, Riah came up and zipped cold Cora into his coat. I'm not sure who likes that more: him or her. Definite symbiosis. He went up to sit at a picnic bench in the sun while I took over explorer patrol. We had fun. I was standing by a tide pool that seemed rather lifeless until I took a closer look.

We saw a fish, snails, limpets, and this guy, plus about 50 of his friends:

When we'd been down long enough that I was sure Riah'd be bored and ready to go, I coaxed the kids back up the steepest rock wall they could find. (They couldn't take the easy way, that would be way too simple!)

Riah was gone.

I didn't panic, nor was I irritated, just a little concerned that we may spend too much time chasing each other in circles. He'd had a really tiring week at work, and sleeping in that dumpy trailer was uncomfortable. I knew he was exhausted, so I figured that he'd gone back to the van to sleep. I herded the kids back up the trail, trying my darnedest to keep them off the rocks and driftwood. (Ever seen anyone chasing chickens? It was like that in slo-mo.) Just around one of the bends I found them.

And it was perfect. You can see that her face is buried in his coat and her little foot is sticking out at his waist. This bench is around bends on either side, so it's shielded a bit from the wind, and Riah told me that he heard at least one person come down the trail, see them and utter a heart-softened, "aw."

You may recall that I mentioned a fire pit. Dinner was a no-brainer.

Cora, it would seem, prefers her smores open-faced. Foreseeing a mess, I conveniently 'forgot' to add the chocolate. Good thing.

We went to bed exhausted and totally content to have finally spent some recreative time together as a family in a part of the world that is breathtakingly beautiful.

Sunday was relaxing. Good because the branch of church members there meet at 8:30! In the morning! Coughs and goo prevented us from staying all 3 hours, so we skipped out after the first meeting. I'm glad. We had a very laid-back day.

After leaving church we drove around and explored just a little bit of Roche Harbor, which has prettier architecture than Friday Harbor, but the views from the west side of the island are unbeatable. It's still weird to me to stand on an island and look south at the Olympics. Can't quite wrap my brain around it. We lured the children back into the car by reminding them excitedly that we were having waffles for lunch! It worked, and they were yummy. That afternoon we took a short walk, watched the kids run in a field and walk along old telephone poles.

At one point in the day I was in the trailer and Riah and the kids came back from wherever they had gone. Abby came in and reported that she saw some animal that looked like a cross between an anteater, wolf and raccoon. I was baffled. Even after I saw it I was baffled. Turns out it was a gray fox.

It rummaged around under the table looking for weenie-roast leftovers until Cora chased it off. She didn't mean to. She just wanted to pet it. Nevermind that it's a wild animal. I was simultaneously amused and freaked out.

The end of our weekend trip came far, far too quickly. At the ferry terminal Riah decided to ride the ferry with us. When we were on our way to the island, he expressed a little disappointment that he was missing the fun that they were having. So he came with us and witnessed the fun that they had this time. And there was plenty of it.

I guess that it wasn't as great an idea as I thought it was, because Lee surmised that since Dad was on the ferry with us, he was coming all the way home, too. We said our good-byes, then heard the call for all walk-on passengers to board. Think of the worst, most dramatic freak-outs that you've ever seen in a movie. Lee's hysterical sobbing and screaming put them all to shame. All I could do was hold him as we watched Riah walk along the sidewalk and out of sight around the bend, mingling our tears. I had to pull over before we were even out of sight of the terminal because he'd unbuckled himself and was walking toward me inside the car. After I cried with him for another few minutes, I got him re-situated and started back down the road. We pulled over in someone's driveway so we could watch Riah's ferry pull out and start back toward the island. It was a beautiful, sad thing to see; the ferry's lights were all on and dusk had definitely fallen. The boat glowed a fluorescent yellow against the grey-green of the water, islands and sky's waning light.

Fatigue and heartbreak are volatile bedfellows. Lee cried and wailed for about 20 minutes, until he was jammied at the gas station and we drove long enough for him to fall asleep. It was sad for me, too, but given the opportunity to do it again, I'd do it in a heartbeat!

It was wonderful having time away from the rigamaroll of home, doing nothing but spending fun time together as a family.

This is one of my new favorite pictures.