Just Today-- A Gift

This blog is a gift.

It is a gift to family and friends who like to stay caught up on what the boys are doing and saying. It is a gift to random readers who want to know how to make the most of their small spaces or how to make a paper mache astronaut helmet or which DC places to visit or what it's like to have seizures with kids. But honestly, it is mostly a gift to myself.

Every once-in-awhile I will get on here and end up reading an entry I hadn't read for years. Often it is about something I probably would have forgotten about if I hadn't written it down. And that makes me happy.

So many times I am too busy to blog. And sometimes I don't know what to blog about. So right now I will blog about today. Just today.

We woke up to snow! The county made a big blunder and didn't cancel school. There were accidents and kids and parents and teachers in danger all over the roads. A few hours into the school day the county sent an apology email to parents. Oops!

Needless to say, since we live three blocks from the school and walk every day, our trip to school was A HUGE, SNOWY ADVENTURE!!! As we were walking in the falling snow to school, Cal boisterously declared today to be, "the best day of all my whole 5 year-old life!" He and Clark dashed around touching, throwing, and tasting the snow. They tackled and dove and slid and twirled and fell. They shrieked about what things like electrical boxes looked like under the snow, and how smooth and white it all was. They loved the snow in their eyes and on their hoods and how it stung their wrists in between their gloves and coats. They stomped their feet along the big mats laid inside the school doors and headed to class with a bunch of other excited kids covered in puffy coats and hats.

BEST DAY OF THEIR LIVES!!

When I got home from dropping the boys off I hung out with Teddy. We read books, he dragged the pantry snacks all over the house while grunting at me, we vacuumed-- me with the vacuum and he pushing a red mini hockey stick like a vacuum--, he tried to eat the toy excavator, we danced to "Dancing Queen" on Pandora, I did some laundry and dishes, he put my shoes on. Once I went to my bedroom for something and came out to find this on the table:

I had absentmindedly not pushed my chair in and he had immediately and deftly climbed up to the Cheerios.

In the afternoon we walked to get the boys, who were just as jubilant about the snow as they had been in the morning. It took us a long while to get home.

After-school snow football

And Cal says...still the best day ever!!

When we got home I gave Teddy a fast snack and the boys put on all their snow gear. Brian got home and we all five headed out to try their new snow tubes on a hill in our neighborhood.

That black line in the distance...a creek at the bottom of the hill!

Cal is off!

Teddy supervising

Faces covered in snow every time-- they loved it

Yep. Still Cal's best day.

We came back home, where we dumped a ton of wet clothes on the entryway floor. For a minute I thought I'd allowed Teddy's tiny toes to get frostbitten, but it was (mostly) my imagination.

I finished dinner and Brian made a fire in the fireplace. The boys were still coming down off their snow high while they (tried to) practice piano. And of course one of them needed to check the fire every few minutes in case Dad needed any help. Then we had dinner. Guess what we had?

Yes, meatballs with marinara.

After dinner, I bathed a messy Teddy, Brian helped Clark on the piano, and Calvin started writing a story. He really wants to use our stapler so he's writing a book with a bunch of pages so he can use it. I found page  one on the table after he went to bed:

Translation: "Once upon a time there was a dinosaur named Emalyn."

I love my little authors and illustrators. I don't think an English teacher mom could ask for better, more exuberant writers. I look forward to reading about the adventures of the dinosaur named Emalyn.

And, what better way to end the day than by sharing a sleeping bag by the fire?

I love boys and I love childhood, where everything is exciting. I love my little life where today is just a day, but never just another day.

They don't seem like much now, but years from now when I read this entry, these little things we did today and funny things these wonderful boys said will seem like little miracles-- like little gifts.