Golden

Dear reader, my goodness how time is flying wildly these days.

It's so cliche and so ultimately true that mothering a toddler means long days and short years.

Orion is hovering near two whole trips around the sun

and I can scarcely believe it at all

and yet I totally feel every second of those two years in my bones

and in my heart

.

He is the sum of all the daily push and pull

and no matter how desperately tired I am at nine pm or how much like 

Sisyphus I feel when the kitchen floor needs cleaning again (who puts in a fucking white tile floor? A chef, that's who. Grumble grumble.)

there is a marker for all the hard work put in:

every night I tuck in a boy who is a bit taller, a bit more filled with wonder (and yams)

and a bit more of the man he will become.

That feels more beautiful than any other thing I could do with my body

but -let me tell you-

when the babysitter comes?

I am ready like wildfire to hug my whole studio with gratitude: I have a career

that affords me a refill of all the parts that mothering empties.

Thank you.

Orion is such a verbal acrobat, coming up with ideas and word combinations that leave me floored

and laughing. He's totally in the 'terrible' section people use to refer to this time, but he's easily distracted from his angst. May it ALWAYS be so.

While most kidlets I know are requesting videos of SpongeBob or Sesame Street his first wish is for videos of 'snowblowders' blowing snow. Or tractors in fields. Or steam engines approaching stations.

He is a lover of all things with engines, both scared and excited.

When something scares him he talks it through until it feels good again, like Emily the goose at Veggielution who hisses at my heels while I'm carrying him.

We walk through this idyllic urban farm until we hear her honking at something and he scrambles into my arms just in case she decides to single us out that day. I would make Christmas dinner out of her if she ever came after my child.

Ahem. Please excuse my inner tiger. 

He kept bringing her up again and again and I said, "Yep, she's pretty intense!"

When we went to the farm stand the following week he announced to the clerk, "Goose Intense!" while nodding that little golden head to the side in agreement with himself.

I melted into a pile of marshmallow.

He loves hothouse cucumbers from my tomato guy at the farmer's market.

He wants raisins with every meal

and he asks after the neighbors across the street as though they were family.

When it's time to read a story, any story at any time of day we have to read it while wrapped in a blanket

and arranged just so. 

His crib went from one Elmo doll and a snowman to housing a menagerie of stuffed animals.

He's so rad. I want to go wake him up right now just to tell him so.

I won't.

As for life around here

the rest is all family and cats and friendships treasured

and would you look at the gorgeous profile in that Leela? That little runt shelter cat became the queen of Sheba.

I want to write more here, I think that every week and then in the living of this life I run out of hours in which to do so.

I miss this kind of expression

but I've got to say that if this was a postcard I was writing to you from

oh....hm... a working vacation on a farm or something a bit more brisk than beaching it

It's such an important and rich time that

I would write with great sincerity 

"Wish you were here"

.

xoxo,

Sunny