Small Victories

Made sausage-kale-white bean stew for lunch. Gave the kids small bowls with cheese on top. Annaliese was trying to negotiate the amount she had to eat; I said, I don't want to hear one word about your food until your bowl is empty, and then you get a reward.

Silence.

Then, Mama look.

I look. she's holding up an empty bowl.

Great job, I say.

She grins. Then says, but I don't want to eat it ever again in my whole life. I hated it.

WRITTEN A FEW DAYS AGO

Summer is ending and the nights are cool. Tomatoes are gone. Apples are in. Pumpkins are here, though we still have mounds of bright green okra, late squash, muscadines. Pecans and chestnuts aren't here yet but butternut squashes are.

Tomorrow is my eight year anniversary.

We were children when we got married and we're probably still children. Maybe. Though we do take care of a whole lot, from bottle-fed calves to employees to children to buildings galore.

But. We were both very young. I especially was young.  I'd made very few decisions in my life at that point, let alone such a big one, but I'd been taught to think well. To idenitfy the proof was in the pudding. 

I am coming to think that the two main ingredients to a happy life are 1. luck-- there are circumstances a lot harder than others and 2. partner lottey. I won the lottery. K is not the perfect man I believed him to be when we married but he is absolutely irrevocably perfect for me. I make him laugh. He makes me happy. He's a good father, a superb husband, and under neat all the layers of responsability we have diligently applied one by one, my best friend and partner in crime.

Plus he has a wicked tan and strong muscles these days. I chose wisely :)

We have a babysitter booked and a twenty-five-year-old station wagon with a tank full of diesel. It all feels wide open. 

My boys, going fishing:

Posing

First, I would like to state that my daughter instructed  me to strike this pose. 

I don't know where she learned this pose: we do not have cable, and I kind of doubt the endless streaming of Backyardigans and Dinosaur Train have taught her this.

I guess at school?

Anyhow, when we got home from church, she grabbed my phone and told me how to stand. 

We went to the pool and I wanted to snap her picture. This is how she stood. I might be in trouble.

But then again, this girl is pure joy. She wants to be older, just like I did at her age. she has always wanted to do more and be more and that has been part of her personality since the day she was born, when she opened her eyes and lifted her head moments into the world.

Love this girl.