A Taste of Here on a Sunday

The neighbors have two young children and sometimes, around dinner time, we can hear the rise and fall of their tantrums in the background, behind our two yelling about this and that. Tonight was one of those nights, but now, with bluegrass on the radio and lights turned out except the one bright one over the kitchen sink, I can't even remember the chaos of the day. It feels good to breathe deeply. I used to hold my breath because I feared the next moment. Hated the one I was in and knew I would hate the next one. But now I think I must hold my breath simply out of habit, and when I release it and look around, everything feels good enough to make me smile when I look at it.

There are two vases of flowers on my table. Black-eyed Susans from the neighbor and deep red dahlias my mother planted in my yard. Yesterday I had a little party while waiting for M to return from his 30 mile race. Crockpot chili and corn muffins and brownies. Sometimes I need to throw a party in order to have a reason to scrub the yogurt and cheerios off the wood floors and find some extra rolls of toilet paper. (I don't know why my own family isn't good enough reason to see that that gets done, but maybe because they are the ones throwing the yogurt down?)

We went out to breakfast very early and then wandered through Frick Park on the way home, stopping to pretend fish in Nine Mile Run and say hello to dogs. When we were nearly home, we ran into a friend of Laurel's from school and she arranged a trip to the playground before we realized it. Half the day was gone by the time we got home, but in a nice Sunday sort of way. I put the football game on and took a defiant sort of nap. (Chores were left undone and emails streamed into my inbox all afternoon, begging to be dealt with right that minute.)

Marko's tooth popped out yesterday. He has two coming in on the top sides. Little vampire teeth. This is the first full week of school and I'm out of ideas for creative lunches, so peanut butter and jelly it is, except we are out of jelly and it's almond butter and not peanut.

Tomorrow I'll walk Laurel up to her school to drop her off. I wonder if she'll still grip my hand tightly, or if she'll run ahead. And then there will be that moment when Marko and I are alone and we look at each other and smile at the silence and are at a loss as to what to do next.