February

Right now I am sitting in my corner chair, the sun on the grass outside is flat and bright and there are white puffy clouds coasting through the cool sky. Silas and Eden are both in bed -- a rare day when both nap (speaking too soon -- Silas is coughing and hemming and hawing, only Eden is asleep). On Saturday we leave for our first family ski trip. I've covered my bed with towering piles of snow pants and t-shirts. Eden busily packed her carry on bag earlier, complete with pacifier and blankie (though we'll have two naps and two bedtimes before we leave...)

February days have been rolling by. A teacher once told me that November and February are the low months. We were in DC where the sky weighs low and hangs grey most of those months. But even here, teased by the desert wind and balmy days, I have felt February's pull. The good thing is that we've slowed down; we've had to. We've stuck around the house; we've lingered at the neighbors' and discovered rum and tonics there (my new favorite); we've walked places. We haven't done laundry, I realize today, but we've been around home. Ben and I have spent nights talking, he listening to my layers of process. I've worked in an art journal for the first time in ages. We've checked out library books. We've moped a little and gotten on each other's nerves, and in the afternoons, eaten frozen thin mints and made tea.

Silas has been in and out of fevers. Family members have been in and out of our house. I've made Ina Garten's Celery Salad a few times -- who knew about a celery salad -- and have squeezed lemons for honey tea. Silas and I watched a humming bird hover in mid-air and snap up bugs. We saw one's little black tongue flicker at the end of its beak, and I held him up to peek into a tiny nest that held two pink eggs while the mother dove in arcs above our heads. Spring is near.

Eden learned to write E's. Everyone can snap now. Silas wrote the alphabet. I'm thinking about what "the kingdom of God" means. Ben has traveled tirelessly but seems to have landed back home for a while, and I am grateful. Some girlfriends came over and sipped champagne on Valentines day. The kids made cards for their classes and sent packages to cousins. Ben and the kids made cards, too, and we all swapped drawings and ate candy at dinner. Ben and I, ten years in, celebrated well together instead of colliding in expectations. No one sent flowers or bought heart-shaped boxes of candy, and that was all right. Again, I am learning to break my notions of tradition and let them fall on life. This is good.

Silas is coughing his little head off and groaning between each cough. His stomach feels funky and he needs his mama. And so I go. The suitcases call quietly, too.