A Bicycle Built For... Five?

Being married is like sharing a tandem bicycle - taking turns steering and peddling in time together. Then you have kids - they run alongside like enthusiastic gremlins, jamming sticks into the spokes. They do this to remind you how smoothly things used to go, and how unrealistic you once were...

Daddy Dinner

The girls had dinner out on the lanai in the pouring rain.  They sat at their little checkerboard table with their tiny folding chairs wearing sweatshirts and underwear, while I served them.  On the menu was matzo ball soup, watermelon, cheese slices, bananas, bread, apples and some tasty, tasty water.  They dined while the rain soaked the grass and splashed in the pond.  The thunder rumbled in the distance and the lightning flashed in the sky like a giant, unseen camera bulb.  They giggled and gobbled and smiled and slurped, kicking their bare toes against each other's knees, as I served another matzo ball and refilled their glasses.  I can't picture a finer picnic.

Running Naked

My daughters are chasing each other around the kitchen, dressed in princess underpants and yelping like puppies.  Their faces reflect intense enjoyment, so why should it bug me so much?  Maybe it's because I'm not having as much fun as they are.  I think about joining them screaming in a circle in my underwear.  While this image may be unpleasant to you,  -  apparent within it, is the distressing preoccupation with appearance that plagues all adulthood.  Will we ever get our priorities as right as they were when we were children?

I can't answer that.  But I do know this:  Running around half-naked while screaming, is not necessarily an indication of anything other than sheer joy.

Now you're probably thinking about doing just that with your mini-people, so here's my advice:  Draw the blinds and go for it!

Home, Always...

I walk through our house in the dark.  I step quietly down the hall to my daughters' room, half-asleep - but fully intent on making sure my children are okay.  Whenever I wake in the middle of the night, I can't help myself.  I just need to see them asleep in their beds.  In the dim bluish glow of the nightlight, I see their precious little heads.  Quiet little loves, resting safely...  May my home always be theirs, in their hearts.

Water For The Gods...

My daughters squirm between the filtered water dispenser, a magazine rack and a candy machine, while I painstakingly fill water bottles for our water cooler at home.  It's "fun" to try and get the water bottles in place and constantly feed bills and change into the slot, while yelling at my girls not to go back behind these machines and touch stuff while I'm doing this.  Meanwhile, people are coming in and out of the store with groceries, glancing disapprovingly at the parts of my children's bodies sporadically poking out from behind the 3 large metal containers at the store exit.

While this is not a moment of pride, it is one to be remembered.  So this is my written "snapshot" -  followed by pictures of my daughters laying around at home...

Cleaner than when you arrived...

I used to pick up trash and throw it away.  My parents were very big on this - even when camping, my dad would always make us leave our spot cleaner than it was when we got there.  And if there was no trash to be found, we'd have to look around until we found some to clean up, or we couldn't leave.

Now I look at a piece of garbage and I immediately see the germs lingering all over it.  I imagine those germs winding up on my fingers and then on my children the next time I pick one up.

Then I leave it there.

(Actually I still pick it up about half the time.  Then I'm always looking for a place to wash my hands.)