Keeping little ones safe, fed, clean and healthy are as familiar to me as walking.  Keeping you and your sister busy, appropriately directed, engaged, interested and basked in attention is what I have practiced for forty years, made it my work, my passion. I walk, I sleep, breathe, hold you and sissy, comfort, soothe, tell you and ask you things and mostly understand what I see and hear.  Grandpa and I read you stories, put out the art caddy, help with socks, and teach you to do it yourself.  Food in the morning, at mid-morning, lunch, mid-afternoon, early evening, packed in bags for outings, poured into sippy cups, pulled out again, sticky, damp, to be washed, sorted and stored. More dishes, more food , more empty boxes, tubs, cartons, tightly packed cupboards, recycling bins overflow, stacks and stacks of things.

Things everywhere, underfoot, at the door, under the couch again, trip and slide, bend and pick up. Little teeny slippers and tennies, kid sized Keens and boots, rain gear, damp for days, hanging on chairs, on knobs, draped over things we’ve been looking for (for days), of all sizes of things, jammies with feet, bottoms, tops, new shirts, fuzzy slippers, dresses, cotton leggings, poked into one drawer, jammed in, pulled out and strewn across the floor again this morning, brightly colored, beautiful to look at again and again, Ellie stretches them in front of her then lays in them, kicking her rubbered stocking feet around, humming with delight. I can’t hum yet this morning.  Or find delight.  Not quite yet.  Not quite yet.

I bend to pull on my own huge slippers, scoop sissy from her crib and its not yet 5 am.  We had a birthday yesterday, I think.  We survived. Had fun, actually, especially after we left the pizza parlor.  The weather was nice so we packed up before cake and went to a local park.  Sand and blue sky and slides, swings, presents and running around.  All outside!  Thanks everybody, Grammie for cake, Uncle Mike for the Tootsie treats, Auntie Robin for a play mobile set that you played with all evening, taking parts of it to bed with you.  Thank you to Shelby and Katie and Grandpa and Moxie and ….I’m exhausted.  I don’t think I have ever been more tired for a prolonged period of time. I have.  I just forget.

What I loved about today buddy, is you.  I am four, Grandpa.  Grandma, I am four now.  You told everyone.  You learned to hold your thumb and stand four fingers up to show the lady at the store. You told daddy.  Mommy.  She was in a hospital bed all night and still is.  She had a panic attack downtown with daddy and now she told me she is too sick to come home for awhile.  You didn’t like seeing the needle and tube for her medicine.  I will visit alone today.  But not you and Liza.  You’ll go play someplace and I’ll talk to mommy.  I’ll tell her that you are still four and bring her some cake. She needs some help now.  I want her to have a friend, a mom of her own, her daddy, husband.  I’m too busy.  Busy with you.  Busy in my brain and in my feet and back and hips and hands.  We’ll manage,  At nine, I think.  Then we’ll manage things.  We are doing just fine, I tell all of us.  So Grandpa and you and Liza

are.  I love you, four-year old, precious boy. gma