Flowers and Spring

I made these containers this weekend. Hard to overstate how much they can lift my spirits each morning.

Baby Birds

I heard what I think were baby birds chirping this morning. I hear the birds every morning now as I walk le dog around the yard, but this morning I heard the distint and plaintive cry of babies in the nest.

I am waiting for my own baby bird to return this afternoon from Camp Orkila. Listening to those babies chirp their I'm Hungry song this morning made me miss mine all the more.

Little Ducks Little Bee

I saw my first baby ducklings today swimming in the stream along the protected wetlands that run between all the office buildings where I work. Mama Duck was out front and those babies kept right with her. If she got the least bit ahead of them the ran their little legs so hard that they came up out of the water as if they were trying to walk atop it. Good lord were they cute.

I am reading a book called Little Bee which is fantastic so far. Finished "The Art of Racing in the Rain" over the weekend. I got teary in my hairstylist's chair on Saturday as I finished it.

It is sunny and 70 degrees here - fabulous weather.

Little boys, little boys

I am struck all too often now by how little time I have left before the boys go off to college and start living on their own. All of Emery's pants are too short and I just bought the newest of them 3 months ago. But each night, sometimes upstairs in Wilbur's room and sometimes downstairs in Emery's room, they crawl in bed together and sleep like angels. I encourage it since Emery is 4 years older than Wilbur and the time will come so soon that they just won't do that anymore.

I walk at home now when Doug isn't there. I just walk back and forth on a stretch of road that takes me just a little beyond our house in either direction. I stay close enough that if Wilbur needs me he can just stand on the front landing and he'll see me. Each week or so I venture a little farther. To see if Emery could watch after his brother for a little while at a time.

Sometimes I am so impatient with them. I get so frustrated and angry that they don't mind what I say or follow directions. I hate myself when I get that way and yell at them. I curse at times. I tell them after that I am wrong to lose my temper that way. I am afraid that's how they'll remember the entirety of their childhoods: mom losing her temper.

I feel it acutely when I think of how fast they are growing. So when I see them in bed, side by side facing each other and one arm slung over the other or a leg crossing the mid-line boundary denoting his side or his side, I think that maybe it will be ok.