Dazzled

 

The children in my class discovered a branch that the wind had blown down while in the playground this week. We explored all of the lichen that had grown on it and peeled off some of the bark to examine the tiny pathways that insects had made in the wood.

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The yellow house across the street has chickens in the yard. Here in my little town there aren’t too many chickens and I love to hear them in the morning. The other day my mum was going for a short stroll and noticed the neighbor planting pansies in her window box. I should say that my mum is 86 years old and has always greeted people she sees and that we live (she in the first floor apartment and my husband and I in the second floor apartment) on a very narrow little lane in Marblehead, MA where many of the homes are pre-revolutionary and many of the roads are more narrow than most driveways. In New England, spring time means greeting your neighbors after a long hibernation. When my mum got home from her little stroll the neighboring woman had left a half dozen eggs in her doorway. White, brown, and the prettiest shade of blue. My mum shared them with me and there were omelettes for breakfast both upstairs and down the following morning. And....I got to hear the chickens clucking! Win, win.

I’ve never been a bath person but lately I’ve been taking a nice relaxing bath on Friday nights when I get home from work. I put some music on, light a few candles, sprinkle some aromatic oils in the diffuser and in the tub and pour myself a glass of wine for a nice relaxing soak.

I went up to visit my grandchildren. Abigail kept saying she wanted to go outside and play in the yard with Verne so my daughter told her she needed to put pants on first. She was wearing a shirt and her diapers because she had already taken her pants off...the girl is a fashionista and is always changing her clothes. So she went up to her room and came back down with a tutu on. A little bit later she said she wanted to go outside again and my daughter told her (again) that she needed to have pants on. Abigail went in to the closet and pulled out her cowboy boots (which used to be Verne’s but don’t fit him anymore). After a bit longer Verne came in to see if Abigail wanted to come out to play with him and, you guessed it, my daughter told her she would need to put pants on. She went into the mud room and grabbed a helmet. 

Sweet little Natalie slept through almost all of it, waking only once for a little suck of something delicious.

I celebrated my 58th birthday at the beginning of the month and my mum came upstairs for dinner when I got home from work.

There was some sort of an incident with the real sparklers that my mother (who is quite a character) was going to put into the cake she got for me. However, for some reason which I don’t truly understand, she lit a sparkler to show my husband and a spark lit the rest of the sparklers...there were small flames and some damage to my birthday card. All of this happened before I arrived so I was presented with a burnt card and some very delicious cake. 

I have learned over the years that it is best not to delve too deeply into the affairs of my mum. 

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