Around Here

We are reveling in the last weeks of the summer season. Filling our days with skate parks and beach bonfires, picnics, parks, pools and the company of so many friends we tend to miss out on the rest of the year, once routine kicks in and our schedules start to cling to calendars and deadlines.

The blog here has been fairly quiet. Partly because, like I mentioned before, The Ma Books is young and in need of more attention to see to it that it grows respectively into the initial vision I had of it from the start, which takes time. Time and effort. Both of which I have very little to lend to anything outside of the basic needs of the house and these kids, but, I do miss it here. I worry about not documenting certain things. Not enough anyway. But I also know that constant "documenting" can start to feel overwhelming too.

Mostly though I'm enjoying the slower days, early mornings when they all rush down the stairs for breakfast with dad and it's just me and the baby, in my arms, for a solid hour or two. He wakes happily and falls asleep the same way. He doesn't fuss, ever, and is incredibly strong in that little body of his, determined to hold his head high, reach for the rattle, show us his voice. All the while proving a  patient, sweet soul with those big, heavy eyebrows expressing a rare sense of doubt here and there when something new peaks his interest. He reminds me a lot of the kind of baby Arlo was. Easy, bright, with a joyful demeanor, only possibly a little wiser. Not so much out to impress. If that can even be said of a baby not yet three months old. The way certain babies seem as if they were here before. An old soul as they say. As much as that poor title's been worn out. . .

The older boys, as usual, are wearing themselves into delirium, daily. Pushing themselves, their energy, their bodies, skills, and brains to the limit with each new waking day. Taking full advantage of the absence of naps and expectations, letting time simply float around them, the way a child's summer should probably be. Hours seeking spontaneous endeavors. Be it hounding the neighbor for another ice cream cone, or piling the planks of wood tossed in the trash, to aid in the construction of a new (usually disspointing) skateboarding trick. Each of them touting slight sunburns, sweaty faced and filthy footed. Dreading the days they know to be inching towards an impeding school date. All the regular ways of the clock back in full swing. Rules, routine and readiness and those God awful early bedtimes.



For now though, we delight in the moment.
Day by day, endlessly thankful for all that is good, slow, and right in our life.