It is 7:30 in the morning and the kids are up sitting at the kitchen bar eating breakfast.  They are sleepy, but slowly waking up and resigned to their fate of another day of public education.  Badger, like so many seven year olds, uses his first moments of wakefulness as a time for self reflection.

“I don’t cry nearly as much as I used to.” he states, with an air of accomplishment.

“I think you are right…you don’t cry as much.”  I reply.

He looks at Sunny, who has been semi-silently moaning and weeping since crawling out of bed five minutes before.  A bad nights sleep and some unfinished homework making it impossible for her to hold her shit together today, so all her 11 year old woes come tumbling out of her like glass shattering on top of a wounded animal who is being forced to listen to finger nails on a chalk board.

“But Sunny, she cries a lot more now.”  he observes.

Being the sympathetic mother that I am I offer up an explanation.

“Well, Sunny is about to go through a really emotional time in her life.”

“Yeah, it’s called her period.”  Leo says.

Sunny and her friend are playing with an old doll house. Being the little girls that they are, their world revolves around little furry creatures, so the tenants of this doll house are not a happy Mother, Father, and four small children with smiles permanently affixed to their plastic faces. No. Those figures have been tossed aside, and the house is owned by two small plastic dogs.

Sunny’s dog is a boy, and the friends dog is a girl. The friend is very anxious for the two dogs to be married and not living in plastic sin.

Sunny very wisely states: “Gosh NO! They are NOT married. They love each other and they just connect really well. But they aren’t married.”

This is Sunny’s Science Fair project. She watered the one on the left with Sprite and the one on the right with water. Surprisingly the grass LOVED the water, and did not love the Sprite. I think the conclusion of the experiment is that grass has a very dissimilar taste in beverages than children.

I decided yesterday that I was going to quit writing about all the ways in which we have been and are sick in this house. I’m finding it annoying. And if I’m annoyed by it, that has to mean that you all are are down right disgusted. I mean every day a new illness and you have to be saying, “For the love of Pete! What passes for hygiene in that house? Wiping their butts with their hands then eating a sandwich and washing it down with a glass of water from the ditch were their horses pee?” It must be horrifying. But my answer is: Yes, that IS what passes for hygiene in this house, except you forgot the part where we sit around eat each others boogies.

But I have this one more story to tell and it involves the fact that last night I took some cold medicine before bed, to clear my head of that jar-like feeling I so love. I took the medicine and laid down in my bed to die of the common cold, when Sunny came in and jumped up next to me and excitedly asked me to go down to her room and listen to her read. This is a nightly ritual, as she is required to read at least 20 minutes every night for her reading grade at school. Chris and I usually take turns listening to her read out loud from what ever book strikes her fancy that evening. Lately she has been picking these really big, ambitious, sixth grade level books like this one. I think she was inspired by her teacher, who is reading this book out loud to the class. I think it’s just fine that she wants to read these difficult books, because it helps improve her reading skills, but generally her attention only lasts for a few chapters before she switches to a new book. I’m pretty sure that’s age appropriate. Plus for me it’s like getting the Reader’s Digest version of Children’s Classics.

So Sunny reads a few pages to me out of Inkspell while I lay on her bed next to her. I am tired, and sick, and beginning to feel the effects of my cold pill. I guess Sunny could sense my distraction, because after those first few pages she pauses reading and begins to quiz me.

“Now, tell me what happened in the page I just read Mom.”

“Ah, ummm, ah….well, someone got read back into a book…?”

“And what was his name?”

“Ummm, well….ahhhh….”

“It’s ok Mom, sometimes I have trouble paying attention too.”

She smiled and patted my arm, and all I could think was wonderful, wonderful, and more wonderful. Oh, Sunny. Thank you so much for being the amazing, sweet, loving person that you are. When you came into my life you made everything more alive and more beautiful by teaching me how to love in a way I didn’t know was possible. And you still teach me, every day.

“When did you and dad get married?”

“In October of 1995.”

“And it takes nine months to have a baby…so when was I born?”

“In May of 1998, well past nine months Sunny.”

“Ok, I was just checking.”

Sunny: “Oh, that word is pronounced Lasagna. I didn’t know that.”

Leo: “You didn’t know Lasagna? Don’t you know how to sound things out girl?”

Sunny: “Oh, I know how to sound words out, and I’ll sound them out right up your ass!”

Leo: “You’ll sound them out up my donkey?”

Sunny: “Donkey?”

Leo: “Yeah, because an ass is a donkey!”