What's being said & the goings on lately at Casa de Motherscribe

It is spring time. A time to bask in the glory of warmer days, the soft scent of flowers perfuming the air, and the noise of children playing outside. It is a time to get one's fingers in the soil and nurture the new growth of winter plantings.

BOY's hair is long again. It hasn't been long since he was about 2 or 3. I can't bear to cut it. It is that gorgeous blond, impossibly thick hair that catches the sunlight and looks like butter. The kind of hair that reminds you of when you were a teenager and that new boy, the one who looked like a surfer, just moved to town. That kind of hair. The kind of hair that other women comment on and just...*sigh* Perhaps even more adorable because he has no consciousness of it. Most days he likes it, although he occasionally mentions wanting to have a haircut. And, if he decides that is what he wants to do, we'll do it... But, we've gotten through that in-between stage. The challenging stage when the hair is looking a bit shaggy, and needs to be sprayed down in back. BOY has his own name for that stage. He calls it...

OH.....NO! My hair looks like a big bowl of spaghetti.

(BOY upon looking at himself in the mirror one morning.)

GIRL & BOY like to play outside. I like them to play outside, and feel pretty good about the fact that I let my children take risks. Frequently, they're on their own in the backyard while I'm inside within hearing distance. Occasionally there is what we call...mischief. Like the time I walked out when GIRL was screaming NO, BOY, NO!!! Yes. That time I found that BOY had taken the ride-on rocket up on top of the play structure, and wanted to ride it down the slide. Or, there was another incident where BOY had a chair up on the slide and wanted to see if he could ride the big lawn chair down the slide. That time, he had this to say when I found him mid-flight:

When I have children and they're not cautious like me I'm going to take the boys to sit on a slide and read stories. It will be a big, big slide, as big as our giant cactus!

As then there are the questions.... just to make sure I'm listening.

Mommy, how did the alphabet get in order?

Ahem. ***clearing of throat....AAAHHHEM***

JCK: BOY, that is SUCH a GREAT question! I don't know.

Meanwhile GIRL is on a quest to learn and write down every letter of the alphabet. The self-motivation and inner drive of my GIRL continues to astonish me. She loves asking me how to spell words and then she writes them down. She has been writing letters to people. I was sick for a couple of days this week, and she made this for me. It is a picture of GIRL and myself in the lovely grass with a flower. I believe once that letter was in hand, I was well on my way to recovery. After I mopped up some tears.

GIRL is growing in confidence with her physical body. She is taking more risks to stretch and pull and push herself. The soft rounded limbs are getting more muscular. I revel in her belief that she is physically strong. Because she is.

Yesterday they put together a band, just BOY & GIRL. The band consisted of Tinkertoy sticks and attachments. They clacked their way around the back yard, while I watched. Then I joined in with a sand pail filled with leftover empty plastic Easter eggs. I just rattled and shook myself along behind them.

And then there was BOY's obstacle course. Thrown together with pure creativity, and requiring props and equipment found in the back yard.

The Course: Hop over 2 sand pails, crawl under the ballet bar (usually referred to as their LIMBO bar), somersault down the gym mat, lift two bouncy balls high in the air as if you are Anton the great weightlifter from Russia, jump on the high end of the see saw and crash to the ground, whack the miniature soccer ball off the T-ball stake with a bat, kick the soccer ball, jump off the chair, chuck the soft baseball as far as you can, then throw the Nerf football up into the tree, and then...you're home. Our back yard is still scarce on grass, much to E's chagrin. But, BOY & GIRL? They're diggin it. And apparently it's good for kids to eat dirt from time to time, so we've got that covered. Oh...about 3 years ago. But, it's not the dirt that I'm worried about. OH, NO. This time of year I start getting anxious because I know that E starts looking at the back yard as if it has a NEON sign blinking POTENTIAL PLACE FOR GRASS TO GROW. And if you don't remember what can happen when E sees potential in our back yard, then let me just leave you with this...the grass is not always greener...

Happy Sunday!

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