notblogging
Shorter, cooler days. A front on summer’s coattails. Soft rain hides a full moon tonight and the chickens whisper chirps at me, asking for voice recognition, as I close the tractor door in the darkness. It’s only me, I tell them. The neighbors mentioned a fat coyote crossing our road yesterday.
Before bed, Chas rolls onto his back on the bedroom floor, staring up at the swirling red snake mobile that I hung from the air vent yesterday.
“How do do dat?” he asks, smiling with wide, twilight eyes.
We are spending mornings, afternoons and evenings outside. I rarely am at the computer, these days. I wonder how I could make more time to write any more than I already do (in my journal), amazed at people who can ignore distractions and faithfully blog on…slacker that I am, I sit slackjawed in a long red canoe at night on the lake, breathless atop placid waters. Our city glows under the indigo sky, buzzing with the current of hungry bats, evening traffic whirring above us on the avenues. We slice through the coke bottle water, a parade of shrieks and babble as our children narrate a joy I’m too grown-up to blurt out. So I just paddle on, smiling, as Chas leans over the bow, dragging his little hand in the water, tiptoe on his flip-flips.
Sidewalk Circuitry
Ford is really, really into circuit boards. Sadly, I’m not. But his father steps up to the plate in my stead. When I walked outside before dinner, he and the boys were elbow-deep in chalk dust, reviewing their designs. So pervasive is the circuitboard concept in his everyday speech that I’m unsure where to begin elaborating on this current fascination. (oh, I just did a funny, did you get that? Because I just did) And, seeing as I’ve already had a day chock-full of the stuff, I must admit that I really don’t want to discuss it any further. Maybe another day. Or maybe I can transcribe something from the engineering mini, himself?…
At any rate, I thought the grandparents would really love to see some of Ford’s creations and I wanted to mention that I, for my part, am thrilled that he’s finally beginning to enjoy drawing and sketching more than he used to. This is so important to me, that he always feels comfortable letting go with paint or pen, whatever medium. You see, for a long time he seemed to have little interest in this kind of activity, preferring to flip through books or pretend he was blowing things up. I tried never to push it, while always having accessible materials. Somwtimes I’d try getting him to work through a freeform “assignment” but it still didn’t break any barriers (of course, knowing me, you’ll understand that I’m certain it only made them!) I think that his seeing me spend more time at the desk doing my own work (which has been more frequent lately, as well) may have something to do with his increased comfort in expressing himself on paper.
Whatever. This just made me smile.