My Kids Are My Life

It’s plainly obvious that being a mom is my primary vocation.

Here’s what I’m currently growing in my garden:

My oldest – smart, easygoing, and very responsible. Starting first grade in a few days. I don’t think I can cope.

Angel baby, she is as sweet and pleasant as she looks. Our easiest baby by far – assertive when she has to communicate some concrete need (like a diaper change, for instance), she is nevertheless completely chill the rest of the time.

Love and love.

Evie.

Eevee.

Evelyn.

Ev.

Her name is music.

Cyrus – what a delight. Very smart and has a way with language, rhymes things, and recites poetry to the extent that he can remember. Says things like “tow trucks tow trucks” and “Mom is better than the store!”

He takes great pride in my cooking, for some reason.

10 lb 4 oz at birth.

When Cyrus was Ev’s age, we had a small fire in the upstairs of our house. Luckily, Cyrus and I, the only ones in the house at the time, were downstairs. I smelled the smoke, called 911, threw on his Columbia snowsuit (as it was October), and out we went.

I took nothing else.

I cared about nothing else.

I already had the only thing that mattered with me.

Incidentally, I had just been reading this book, written by a Wisconsin writer and volunteer firefighter Michael Perry.

Small-town volunteer firefighters – and I’m speaking from a place of experience here – are as efficient as they are stereotypically hot (no pun intended). I haven’t come from a culture of volunteerism, so I think the very fact of their existence is a miracle. This I believe is what love thy neighbor looks like.

FYI, Mr. Perry has a new book out – a New York Times bestseller, no less. I want to read it.

Anyhow, this machinery-crazy child loves to wear pigtails.

I love these kids so much, my heart overflows. Being home with them is a luxury I treasure like nothing else.

There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.