This morning I wrote a limerick before school for Ivan. He's leader of the week for his class and was supposed to bring in pictures of himself to share. I couldn't find any and he didn't want any old pictures either. He wanted pictures that Kris had taken on his phone at the air show last weekend. Not easy to get prints of those...at least not for me. I felt bad that I hadn't managed to do more, so I whipped up an Ivan limerick this morning for him to take to school for his teacher (Miss Mary) to read. He loved it.

A sweet little dreamer named Ivan

Saw himself in the future just thrivin'

He's a famous inventor

With Miss Mary his mentor

There's no limit to where he's arrivin'

What do we do with the dirt in our homes? What do we do with the hurts that we've inflicted on each other? What do we do with the habits that don't just hurt ourselves, but drag the rest of our family down? What do we do when we don't have time to heal? We don't have time to argue and debate, or maybe we don't have the strength for one more conversation on a belabored topic, maybe we just don't want to, so we have to put it somewhere. The dust we stir up is just tangible enough to drive us from the room and we often don't come back until it's settled again to the floor and then we can walk over it or even better, we can sweep it under the rug.

Full story »

An indolent fellow named Bert

Was as stiff as the starch in his shirt

His will to say "no"

Had embodied him so

That his friends finally judged him inert

When she sat in the chair in the corner, with the sunlight falling on her bed and the sounds of outdoors, the birds, the children and the whirring of insects came blowing in through her patio window, what did she say to you?

When she was too warm to work outside anymore, and nothing needed doing inside, and she escaped to that room and closed the door, what did she say to you?

When everything was undone and the frustration was starting to show on her forehead, she would say so little to us, but I know she found you and I know she had something to say.

When she felt the thinness of having five kids and only two hands and one heart, what did she say to you?

If I could find a path to the past, I would sit as quietly as I could and listen to my mother's prayers.

I'm a little behind on photos and uploading and dishes and vacuuming and reading and pretty much everything else in my life, but I'm having a good time.

Easter was almost a month ago, but I took a few pictures of the boys and figured I might as well share them late, rather than never.

These were taken before we left for church that morning. Just two...the first picture and the last. You can pretty much imagine what all the other 59 pictures in between might look like.

It seems my boys are in a stage of extremes. There is either no expression or there is complete cheese. Nothing in between. I'm not sure how long this lasts but I'm expecting it to be a while.

I tried putting them in different positions, different sides of the porch, not touching each other, etc. I tried making deals with them..."one nice smile from each of you in exchange for three silly pictures." They have lost the ability to smile nicely...or maybe it's that they can't all three smile nicely at the same time. Regardless, we had fun. They love these pictures, even the one where Owen is biting Ivan's head, and I will love them too...in a few years.