7 quick takes

Last updated on: November 3, 2015 at 12:27 pm by Anne Kennedy

7 quick takes 2015-11-03T12:27:35-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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one
I started waking up half an hour earlier this week in the effort to have one half hour without the babies down my throat. I love them, obviously, but there isn’t one moment of any day that I’m not holding one or talking to one or taking something away from one. So I thought, maybe if I start the day with a half an hour of quiet, I’ll love them even more than I do already. Miraculously, though, after the first quiet morning, they figured out, perhaps through telepathy, that I was awake and readjusted their arising to mine yet again. So this week we have had the usual squall, beating me and each other as we all lie in bed together, shouting and pulling hair and generally doing that mixed marshal arts routine. After the initial ‘lie in’ they get up and roam around, covering themselves with bandaids, eating all the bananas, taking advantage of Alouicious’ spaceball bat that he always leaves lying about. Then we all have a shower together and get dressed. And then they drape themselves over my back while I try to do school with the rest of the crew…for the rest off the day…until nine o’clock when they are finally wrestled into bed…even though they’re not really napping any more…this sentence doesn’t really have an end.
two
I did mean to say Spaceball. Alouicious is playing on a Little League team this ‘spring’ and every time he goes to get in the car for practice, Marigold flings herself on the floor and screams to be allowed to go to Spaceball Practice too. It’s one of the three or four things that brings joy to the marathon that is Little League. The others include the good chocolate from Aldi on the way out to his practice (which is a Very Long Way Away), the fact that he’s so happy about the whole enterprise, and the fact that no one can any longer accuse me of not doing anything fun. I’ll be able to look back on this golden time when they’re whining and crying and say, ‘No No! Remember! Alouicious got to play baseball in the spring of 2013!’

three
I shouldn’t have put spring in scare quotes. My tulips are finally blooming and I’ve been able to walk outside all week and the children, with coats on, have been able to eat lunch in the patch of sun out the back door.
four
My walk outside includes going up one light hill, down one side and then back up another and then home, a sort of undulating loop. Yesterday I had to carry my fat dog up the first slight hill because he sat down at the bottom and glared at me so that I was finally pulling him along on his derrière by the leash. But the person on the opposite walk was giving me a suspicious look so I picked him up and lugged him up the hill. Stupid dog. Every day when he sees its time for a walk he tries to go in the backyard and hide from me.
five
Matt has been spending his spare time trying to calculate how many acres of wheat it would take to feed a family of eight and where to buy a scythe. The last time we went through this I think it was potatoes. And he’s been muttering to himself about goats and chickens. Just a heads up to the church.
six
I just want to grow a full yard of tomatoes and flowers and skip everything else. And I’d like a forsythia bush and a flowering cherry tree and some tall cypress trees growing up the wall of the church. But I don’t really have time so tralala.
seven
Really grateful for every day that life is quiet, dull even. The wide world is so full of heartbreak and woe and drama. Every day we quietly go about our duty is a day of real joy for me and a treasure to my brood. So strange to me how happy they are. I seem to remember crying through much of my tenth year. Elphine, on the other hand, only cried recently because she caught herself in the eye with a piece of paper. Where is her deep well of sorrow and grief? Maybe growing up without excitement and adventure and travel is ok. We all wrote a paragraph together this week about living next to the church. It is my parting weekend gift to you. Go check out Jen!

We live next to the church. On Sundays we go and ate cookies and doghnuts. Living so close is convenient because our dad is the pastor. Many people come to visit is because of our close proximity*. We love living here as the Church of the Good Shepherd lies heavy upon us**.

*This was a collaborative effort with me insisting in the the word ‘proximity’. I couldn’t let it go which I now see is sort of ridiculous.
**This last sentence is all Gladys. I don’t know. I know she’s only five but sheesh.

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