Updates:

Gram: Things look as well as we could have hoped! YAY! She'll go home tomorrow, then go back for surgery on Wednesday. She's full of wit, and sick of being there, so I know being home for a few days will be so very much better for her body and spirits. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

Home: The Icon Closet has found a new identity (think super heroes) - it's going to be Linen Closet! It may seem a strange transformation, but if Coat Closet can become Utility Room, then this should be a snap. It does mean there will be no bejeweled Buddha squatting at the door to greet visitors, but at least we won't have towels and wash cloths stacked on the counter in the bathroom. HVAC progress is being made. WAH-HOO. Zorak bought one of those return registers for the main system - it's stunning what a difference that makes when placed over the gaping Omen Hole at the end of the hall. It was waiting to swallow Smidge one day, we just know it, and now we don't have to keep myriad things stacked against it as a barrier. Funny how something can go from frightening to walk past to not only intentional but somewhat decorative with just a little do-dad.

School: We lost James' math book today. Could not find it, although we looked and looked. We eventually gave up and he broke out another math book just so he'd have something to do. Well, I found it tonight while fixing supper. It was right there, next to the frozen broccoli... When I told him I'd found his book, and where, he said, "OH! Of course!" ??? Turns out he'd spilled something on it yesterday and put it in the freezer for safe keeping until we could tend to it. He'd seen me do that with books I've left on the porch during monsoons...

Everything else is going well. John's confidence in his reading skills is blossoming. Both boys are doing so well with lessons, and they seem to enjoy all they are capable of doing. Success is a tasty reward when it's earned through hard work and initiative. (That's a lesson I hope they carry with them for life - if they learn nothing else this year, they've learned that. This is good stuff.)

Poems: The boys love poetry. Nobody's told them it's drugery, and so they devour it with gusto and savor every morsel. Tonight we revisited one of our favorites: Now We Are Six. The boys can finish most of the poems themselves, which is so funny to me because I don't know them that well (and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who reads them aloud around here). I started to read "Sneezles", when John informed me that I'd broached some unspoken protocol. You must read "Busy" first, and THEN "Sneezles". Ohhhh. I'm glad to know that, aren't you?

I'm a little melancholy at the moment over the fact that the boys are growing so old, so quickly. Gone are the cherubic cheeks, the swaggering gait of the toddlers. Their fears and dreams are different now than when they were two and four. Bigger, both. And new to me. It's intimidating to watch them grow and grow in such vigorous leaps. John will be six this month, and yet, in my mind, he's four. Forever four. But no. Six. One day six will seem so little. Six will be an age for remembering. Right now, though, it feels so big. So momentous. I've said it before, but it bears repeating: they will never again be as small as they are today. We have to savor every curious, stubborn, creative, exasperating moment of it because there are no second servings.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy