Just Write {85}

We let them stay up late. The neighbor boys were out and it was finally so warm and there was so little wind to blast through and take our fun. The boys all had light sabers and Elsie Jane had bubbles and a truck.

That was after she climbed in the minivan (no keys in there, thank God) and blasted the horn by pressing her chest against it.

OH HELLO.

She got really mad when I took her out, kicking and screaming and walking away like I’d just told her to go to bed. But that tantrum was for later.

Now she’s in her bed, calling out over and over Mama, Mama, Mama and there are nights when she only says it a few times. Tonight she’s not giving up because that’s what being over-tired does. The opposite effect. She asks for water and then the next time she has thrown All The Pacifiers out onto the ground into the dark.

At the end of the bed, after my feet there are piles of laundry. After writing this I’ll fold and sort, to be put away tomorrow. Listen To Your Mother is over, and I’ve been slowly catching up. Very slowly. I have that in flux feeling, like I’m hovering just a bit over my life, watching me. I’m waiting to see what comes next. Obviously, there’s the move, but there’s also a hole where Listen To Your Mother planning, collaborating and connecting was and now isn’t. We’re all a little sad. It was such a good night and then there was a joy hangover and then some post-production grief.

Elsie is quiet now and every night I have tea, a routine that settles me in for bedtime and usually I’ve even started drinking it by now. It feels weird to not have it at the same time every night. What a creature of habit I’ve become. Of course when I was a kid I looked at adults and their habits and routines and rituals as boring. I thought the small routines were there for them because they had nothing else to do. Ha!

Now I see that these are the parts of the daily grind we can control. Soft places. The Known. Creature Comforts.

Miles and Asher are asleep in their bunk beds too, and thinking of their sleeping faces reminded me of Mother’s Day, their sweet gifts to me.

Miles filled out a question book about me at school. He said that I’m nice and beautiful, that he would love to snuggle up to me for a day and watch movies together, and that I love drinking coffee and tea.

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This is the 85th installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {Please see the details here.} I would love to read your freely written words so join me and link up below. You can add the url of your post at any time. Just be sure it’s a link to your Just Write post, not to your main page, and please don’t link to posts that are not freely written in the spirit of capturing moments–you know, don’t link to how-to lists or sponsored posts. Also, please link back to this post in your post so people know where to go if they’d like to join in.

Please take a moment to visit someone else who has linked up! It’s a really good way to meet new writers and get inspired by the meaning behind their moments. Word? Thank you!