It's been a lovely weekend, Thiz. The first that we've spent entirely in Northfield in what seems like a long, long time. Yesterday was Homecoming at St. Olaf. We went for a long family walk in the morning. Blue skies, crisp and sunny. All the grasses brown and dry, all the trees on fire. Wind making tiny tears at the corners of our eyes. Luxy panting. You riding on Daddy's back in the backpack, white knit cap and a too-large alpaca coat. The sleeves covered your hands so all your gestures looked large and prophetic.
When we got home I put a chicken carcass in a pot with onions and carrots and parsley and salt, covered it with water and set it to simmer. Your father peeled apples from Grandpa Judy's farm and made a crisp (Betty Crocker, the cookbook with the melted cover). You napped.
When you woke we put you back into your pack and hiked over to the football field. Silver bleachers filled and more students and alumni standing on the track around the field. Black and gold sweatshirts, the smell of popcorn and hot dogs. It was half time. Four people standing nervously and coldly in the middle of the green while a disembodied voice inducted them into the Olaf Athletic Hall of Fame. We talked to Sarah and Steve and Anna; we braved the bookstore and bought you a huge black knit hat with a gold lion emblazoned on the hem; we ate cookies and drank cider and walked back home.
Greg and Carsten came over for dinner: chicken soup and dark stout and canned pineapple. You couldn't focus on eating because you were so intent on Carsten. You followed his every move.
You went to sleep just fine but woke up twice because of teething pain (we think).
Today Daddy sang "Lord of All Hopefulness" in church. You wore a velvet lavender dress, tights, and (because we have no dress shoes for you) your brown sneakers. When I picked you up from the nursery I braced myself for the nursery workers' usual thinly-veiled critiques of your behavior. "She certainly has attitude!" or "Well, she's certainly something all right!" or "She was a little needy but played fairly well for some of the time." Today there were new nursery workers, clearly highly intelligent and far more emotionally sensitive than the previous nursery workers. "She was so terrific," they raved, "she just did so well!" and "We were just talking about how if we ever have kids we want to have daughters just like Thisbe" and "We don't know what you guys are doing, but it sure is working wonders, she's such a great kid." For a while I wondered if I was inserting my own script into their mouths or if perhaps Peder had paid them off. But they seemed sincere.
The afternoon was filled with more mundane things--you peeled off the skin of a yellow onion and then proudly threw a piece of dog poop at me in the park. Then I hid bites of pancake in your wooden mailbox and we looked at a very PC book about babies from around the world. Rwanda baby! Thailand baby! Bhutan baby!
Tonight we'll have frozen pizza. Mommy will go to a book group to discuss "Little Heathens," a book she has yet to read. Daddy will stay home and watch baseball or "Mad Men" or both.
It was nice to just be together as a family this weekend. Sometimes I'm so intent at protecting my "own" time that Daddy and I end up passing you back and forth. Oftentimes the time we all spend together is harried time, exhausted time. We forget to relax together, to putter around together, to read together, to stop worrying about the next thing and who will accomplish it. It was a blessing just to be. Amen.
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