Day 3

     Really, if you're  reading this, a lot of it is for myself to keep my own records.  I feel kinda sheepish writing a list of good things that happened in our household for others to read.  The purpose of it all is to prove to myself that there is beauty in the mayhem, that the screaming and pestering  and messes are not the sum-total of our day's worth.   Maybe you don't believe me.  I don't ,when I read those blogs with titles like "Any Mess can be Beautiful!", and then the picture is a photographer quality shot of organic, homemade, spelt, gluten-free breadcrumbs on a vintage plate with little birds on it.  Does anyone want to see the squashed raisins stuck with cat fur and blonde hairs under my table?  They've been there a long time.  It never seems like the right moment to go and get a bread tag to scrape the ick off.  Maybe it's not a raisin at all.
    
*Shudder*.   Anyways, it's only been three days but already I'm grooving on highlighting the lovely moments and actually writing them down which everyone always says you should do but rarely do you get around to it because you think if it's so special you're bound to remember.   But you don't.  And just the act of compiling a list almost makes you in a more present state throughout the day to make sure those moments happen.  Maybe it sounds contrived but it's more like seizing the opportunities that naturally pop up when you're noticing.   I hope to practice noticing more and more.

   Today is Wednesday.  Usually that is our hike day with our usual group of stalwarts, many of whom have been hiking every single Wednesday in every kind of weather and around the turning of the season for about 6 or 7 years now.  Only twice in 7 years have I thought it would have been better to stay at home at the end one of these hikes.  Once it was a spring mud season and when I had finally gotten my infant wrapped onto me  the toddler fell headlong into a mud puddle and wailed while I tried to keep her moving for at least a little while for the sake of the older boys.  The other was when I was trudging through knee deep snow while pregnant, with a 2 year old strapped to my back and a livid four year old being dragged behind my up a steep hill and down the other side.  The other 298 or so hikes have been great.  Today, however,  we chose to go to the RBG greenhouse because it's still very, very cold.  The kids tried to get the koi fish to bite their fingers and we learned how to make a jade plant flower.  Success.

       One little story from in the van which I found gratifying:  Isaac was explaining to Anneke the difference between fiction and non-fiction, which he learned on TV.   "Harry Potter is definitely fiction, right Mom?"  Then Anneke:  "So that story about that brown man that got out of jail and saved the world is non-fiction, right Mom?"  We read the kid's version of Nelson Mandela's biography after his death and it seems she was suitably struck by it.  Fist pump.

    The rest of the day was a play date with their bestest friends which gave me fight-free time to set up my new sewing room in the attic.   And.  And.   On the way to our meeting point to swap the kids back,  Anneke became the proud owner of her very own dwarf hamster.  She now speaks with authority on all things hamster-related to her less informed siblings and she requested prayer for "the poor and those without hamsters"  at dinner time.   Long may she live.  The hamster, I mean.