Weekend Happy…
I woke up this morning to find myself snuggled up to a warm, snoring child and to hear my dog, Sam, whining at my bedside. I got up and followed him to the back door and opened it to let him out. He stuck his nose out the door, then promptly turned around and trotted back to his bed. I stood holding the door for a second, but he looked at me with a resolute, “Nope”.
And, then I saw that it was snowing.
I love when it snows, but I was surprised. It’s too early for snow. It’s really the wet snow that leaves the ground looking fresh and dewey – it’s just a heavier form of rain. I looked out at that snow and had the urge to run out into the slobbery smooches the earth was sending to me.
But, I remembered that little snoring child, and remembered he had stayed up until midnight, proving that he could stay up as long as the big kids (I’d told them they could go to bed whenever they wanted to). When he got tired, he came to me with one of the big kids’ novels and wanted to lie next to me while I read. I read for awhile and he started to nod off. I stopped reading and he woke up and complained that I wasn’t reading anymore. So I read for awhile until he was truly asleep. Then read awhile longer just so he could hear my voice in his sleep.
I then took out my own book and read early into the morning. I looked up at the clock and realized it was time to turn the clocks back an hour, and I figured I should probably go to sleep. I got up to check the doors and make sure everyone was tucked in tight, and found my older son in the living room, comfortably stretched out on the loveseat – watching youtube tornado videos on the xbox. I laughed at him and he laughed at me and said, “I can stay up all night, I really can!” So I hugged him and told him to go to sleep when he felt like going to sleep.
I checked on my daughter – so independent, always wanting to have her own space and own bed and who has slept on the top of the bunk bed since she was three – and thought of how someone had told me earlier in the evening that she looks just like me, a literal tiny version of me, and I smiled at her sleeping in the dark. And I went to bed to snuggle up with my little sleeping son.
So, I resisted the urge to run outside because I knew that my little son wouldn’t sleep much longer if I got up for the day. I stole back into the room and tucked up next to him and pulled out the book I’d been too tired to finish last night. I read until my daughter came into my room to complain about how her brother was bothering her. I told her that if he’s bothering her, she has my permission to beat him up. The little son, hearing these words, popped up out of bed – laughing – and was up for the day.
So, I got up to see if it was still snowing. It was. I told my older son that he’d better watch out because I told his sister she could beat him up. He laughed, saying he didn’t care. So, I walked to the back porch, put on my polka dotted boots, and walked out into the snow.
The earth kissed me – so much like wet, sloppy kisses of a two year old – and I smiled. I walked around wherever I had the urge to walk. I felt the coldness (cold, but not THAT cold) through the thin cloth of my t-shirt and calf-length sweatpants and raised my face to the snow. I felt it landing in my tangled mass of hair – standing up on all sides, as crazy in appearance as I am in spirit. I stopped and looked at my berry bushes, then walked along the line of small pine trees my older son has planted and which lead to my garden. I touched them and let my fingertips linger on their wet needles. I stood by the garden fence and looked at the plants and trees therein, fingering the needles of a small white spruce planted right next to the fence. I started to feel cold, so walked toward the house, but realized I wasn’t ready to go inside yet.
I walked to the south fence, where I’d noticed a couple of the fence boards had come loose – leaving a gap where the neighbors can see into my yard. I stood on some random wood pieces I haven’t had a chance to feed to my wood chipper, and looked over the fence to see that the horizontal 2×4 on the neighbor’s side of the fence that those slats were screwed into had cracked and was so rotted that it was bowed down toward the ground. I figure I’ll have to pull all of the fence slats along that rotted piece down so that I can replace it. Wondering when I’d have the time to go get lumber, I looked down toward my feet and saw a 2×4 lying there, right next to the fence. I looked at it, then looked back over the fence to see if it would fit. I smiled because the found 2×4 is longer than the piece that needs to be replaced, so I’ll get to use my circular saw to remedy the difference.
The wind started to blow a little, blowing the wet snow against my skin, and I decided to head inside. With slight regret, I stepped into the warmth of the back porch and kicked off my boots. While doing this, my older son came in – crying – because my daughter had hit him on the head with a styrofoam light stick thing we got from the hockey game last night. I told him he is fine, that that thing doesn’t hurt at all. She followed right at his heels, saying he’d asked her to beat him up. I took them into the living room, and reminded him that I’d told her she had permission to fight him and so he took the light stick and started hitting her with it. She just sat there next to him laughing while he did this. I laughed at them and told him again – if he’s going go bother her, she’s going to bother him, so he’d better be on the lookout.
I went into the bathroom and turned on the light, finding myself in the mirror – wild hair full of melted snowdrops.
And, I laughed at my reflection in the mirror.
I feel happy.
I wanted to share that with you.