another day in paradise

i'm sitting here, drinking my coffee....after hitting the snooze on my alarm for an hour...I've finished catching up on email...my daughter just pointed out a pretty good sized "stick bug" on a window that she noticed as she was eating breakfast with the tarantula my guys caught in the garage and decided to home...the roadrunners just ran by....yes, there's two...they're a family....they like running all over our front yard, sometimes perching on our cars, eating hopgrassers and such.  last night, when we got home from my middle son's fourteenth birthday dinner, there was a fox in our driveway to greet us.  but he didn't run when we got out of the car...he just stood there, looking at us.  as he did run off, I noticed a deer sitting in the grass...her head just visible near the tree with the swing in it.

who's life is this?  really?  mine?  weird.

sometimes I wish for the shady, grassy, critter free days of living in a neighborhood.  yes, I had a few snakes in my backyard when I was in the "city."  but never a venomous one.  (did I mention we found a baby rattlesnake in my garden last week?  gag...yuck...grrr!)  I just miss how tidy things felt.  the house could be a mess, but mowing the yard took less than an hour and gave you a cool, shady spot to have a beer and feel so accomplished.  and we never had scorpions or giant centipedes IN.  OUR.  HOUSE.  but then the kids get all excited about keeping a tarantula for a little while.  and the little girl says something like, "can we feed him hopgrassers?"  and "look at that stick bug, mama!"  with such excitement and wonder and, yes, acceptance.  barely a trace of terror.  (in her Disney belle dress...she's amazing, let me tell ya...I mean my daughter...not belle.)  and I think maybe it's okay.  maybe i'm not crazy to love being here. 

things are settling down some around here.  we are getting the hang of our new schedules.  life is developing a rhythm.  we still miss the firstborn...and know he's doing great.  but it's a dull ache that we wouldn't give up for the world and is probably just part of growing up as a parent.  the rest of us are kind of rediscovering each other around his absence.  it's been good.  there has been time for talking, for laughing, for sharing.  I guess this way it'll hurt just as much when each of them leaves...like it should. 

it's kind of a strange point in life as a parent when your middle child turns fourteen.  like...we're really growing up as parents.  no turning back.  no innocently pleading ignorance.  we're not TEN anymore...  we know better.  the funny thing is, somethings we DO know better...but we also know what's important.  it's the first time I can confidently make a decision I know may not be best in the continuum of choices for that decision.  but I know the continuum of my life and where i'm working to get pretty well.  and that gives me a boldness I didn't have back in the day when I was trying to make EACH.  DECISION.  PERFECT.  it doesn't crush me to have someone say I should've made a different choice.  it may challenge me.  but i'm a little more comfortable in challenge than I used to be.  funny how we start out as adults craving success and being knocked down by the smallest challenges.  and now i'm more comfortable with challenge...less focused on success.  weird.

ok, well, I've avoided being productive til almost ten o'clock this morning.  I mean, I've cut up watermelon for everyone to eat for breakfast and made coffee, swept...talked a few things through.  but that's it.  well, and worked with baby girl on her letters this morning.  but I still need to make a tie dye cake with the fourteen year old to share with his biology group, take two littles swimming while fourteen year old does biology, come home and cook, and go to book club.  in between there, I should work on schooling, check in with fifteen year old, throw baby girl's laundry in (to avoid tomorrow's dirty leotard/pre-dance argument), shower, and other things that will become apparent as I walk through my house.  it's a good thing it's mostly a line...i'd run circles all day if my house were shaped differently.

peace