uno is the perfect game for three...

As i watch his squared fingers hold his cards, laying them out on the table, sorting them according to colour, and trying to recognise correctly the numbers on them,
i have a flashback...
My first flaxen haired girl - always wearing a cotton dress and thick colorful butterfly tights - sitting on the kitchen chair propped on her knees so she can reach the top of the table. Her eyes are a bright summer day blue - warm and moist with just a hint of the caution that sits behind them.
Her uneven bangs are her mama's attempt to tame her thin whispy mane. Her hair only behaves for the first hour after a bath, after that jumping up to stand at every odd angle, it's jovial display of clownishness masking the serious girl it crowns.
She's my girl.
Every emotion that flashes across that face, over those blue orbs; every delicate mannerism is in my native tongue. i understand every hesitation, every cock of her eyebrow, each hint of a smile that never comes farther than the tip of her eye - not ever even making the slightest curve on her lips... i'm one of the few adults she'll make eye contact with in these years when a stranger's hello can bring her clinging to my knees in great hiccuping sobs.
She was playing uno with her granny - she couldn't have been more than four.
She layed that second to last card of her hand precisely on the deck, with tiny hands whose every fingernail is a chewed down stub, matching the chewed down stubs on her dolly's hands that rests beside her... both victims of her nervous habit.
"Cairo!" Granny so gently encouraged, "You layed down your second last card... that means you have to say, 'uno'!"
Her head shook almost imperceptibly.
"C'mon, it's just part of the game. You gotta say, 'uno' and if i catch you not saying it, then you have to pick up TWO cards, and look, you're almost finished! You don't want to have to pick up two cards."
Tender blonde head shakes - eyes full of understanding, and unwillingness.
"Ok, Cairo - you have to choose, you can either say 'uno' or you have to pick up two cards!!"
Granny teases gently, but Cai won't budge - she reaches over and delicately picks two cards off the top of the pile adding them to her solitary card.
"UNO!!" Sunshine Boy cries, dragging me back to the present - and Time laughs at me in her beautiful merciless way.

dessert

i spent the day tripping over his short self - he kept finding me and clinging pitifully to my pant legs begging to be picked up - and i, in my busy state kept shushing, feeding, changing, wiping his sweet little snotty nose - and then putting him back down, continuing on with the tasks at hand.
Finally his tone of suggestion morphed into one of insistent need - and i picked him up in my arms and felt his wee body press into me with his short baby arms reaching through my tangle of hair to circle my neck.
We snuck upstairs.
He already had his nap - he was fed, changed, clean...
He just needed his mama.
We went into his little blue room and i plopped him onto a pillow on Gagey's bed (which is always made because nobody sleeps in it... *sigh*) - then i pulled his blankie out of his crib and curled up beside him on his bed.
i heard a satisfied sigh escape his lips and then the rhythmic suck on his soother began.
We lay like that for what felt like forever - his tiny fingers trailing mine, drawing patterns on the palm of my hand while his body rested in perfect contentedness - just *being*, enjoying, holding each other.
"Ephraim..." i whispered breaking the silence, and i heard his latch break on his soother as he whispered his baby words back at me.
"Ephraim, you know what you're like? You're like dessert. Y'know how sometimes you have a nice big, satisfying meal... but after it's all done, you long for just a bite of something sweet. Some deliciousness to nibble on with a hot cup of coffee..."
i nibble on his baby ear, and his laugh is a sharp intake of breath.
There never was a sweeter dessert in all the world.

i'm gonna...

i mean... i might.
i hate putting out goals or dreams that i'm not absolutely certain i can achieve.
i think there's a pride thing there.
When i started running a couple of years ago - i didn't even want to whisper it to friends or family until i had completed my 10k. Then i felt like i had an accomplishment under my belt & it wasn't just an, "i'm gonna," it was an, "i did."
This past week, i read a blog post about a blogger's line in the sand, "No More Excuses". She claims she's not gonna live her life with obesity clawing at her health - & i believe her. She bravely put out her strategy & her "before" pictures - & i swallowed hard 'cause i know i wouldn't have the humility to do that.
And then i read another of my favourite blogs & she posted about her DNF in her most recent marathon. She completed over TWENTY miles & then had to quit (i should point out here, she was running with the stomach flu... not cool).
i wanna be able to post inklings of dreams without feeling like i should burn with shame if i fail.
Ever since i broke my kneecap last year, i have been reticent to blog about running...
There has been so much pain with my knee & i thought for awhile that running just can't happen for me (& let's be honest - maybe i won't ever be able to run very far without pain) - but, i have been running... and i feel a tiny burst of victory every time i run past that place where i fell & broke my knee.
"See, broken knee? We can do this again, can't we?"
These little short snippets of runs - they make my heart pound and leave me breathless - but i want them to be longer and faster... and (swallowing pride) if my knee holds out, i'm gonna ...i might... i want to... run a race again someday.

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PS - Another book review for 40 Weeks! Take a look here.
i wanna say *thank you* to everyone who has so graciously read & reviewed my book. A couple of you even put reviews on Amazon too & that is *so very* appreciated. If you do a review, please let me know so i can link to it!

book reports

i overhear my big girls talking in the living room.
"So what's happening in Jane Eyre, Sloan?"
"Well, Jane just ran away because she decided not to marry Mr. Rochester."
"Oh? Why didn't she want to marry him?"
"Well, she was going to marry him, but then she found out at their wedding that he was already married to a mad woman who lives in his attic."
Silence.
"That would be awkward."

early morning goodbyes... late night hello's...

When goodbyes and hello's are separated by days of waiting...
and his side of the bed becomes cool to the touch.
i think about having a husband who doesn't travel.
It happened so quickly - my getting used to his easy presence these last months when the economy has slowed his travel... A couple days here, a couple days there; this is the way to do things, i thought.
But travel can only be pushed off so long, and his travel bag itches to get back on the road - so reluctantly i surrender.
And here's the part where i post my moments of insanity pitiful thoughts verbatim...
"If he doesn't call by 10AM, 11AM noon, it means he doesn't really love me."
"When he calls, i'm gonna pretend i don't care..."
"i'm gonna call him..."
"No wait... when he calls, i'm not gonna answer the phone."
"i wish he would call me."
"If he doesn't call by 4PM, it means he's been killed in a car accident."
"i can't believe i wasn't gonna pick up the phone & he's lying bleeding and dying in a ditch somewhere..."
"i'm gonna call him..."
"Shoot. He's probably in a meeting, i'll wait it out a bit..."
At the stroke of the supper hour, the phone rings. A snotty baby sobs pitifully as he tries to climb into my lap. Nobody can find a cordless phone, and i'm attached to the wall in the smallest room of our house with 7 children all talking to me at the same time.
Breathlessly, i answer the call i've been waiting for for the past 26 hours and 14 minutes (if i were a counting sort of girl...)
"Hey, what are you up to?" He asks.
Beside me... mayhem. i hold the baby who is reaching down my shirt, smearing his gooey face all over my shoulder. Sunshine boy has stubbed his toe, and his indignant shrieks pierce the high heavens. My two big girls look at me expectantly mouthing, "What's for supper? We have to leave in a half hour!!" Two other children start arguing about the possibility of having friends sleep over, and my son tries wiggle onto the seat i'm occupying so he can play a game on the computer.
*giant sob*
"Hang on a sec..." i beg. i hold the phone away from my mouth and give the death glare all around. Just as i'm about to speak into the phone again, baby howls brokenheartedly and i hear Neil's wry mutter from a province away, "Thanks, that's way better..."
Pause.
"i'll talk to you later, it sounds like it's kind of crazy there right now..."
"Yeh... it kind of is."
And i wish fervently in that moment that it wasn't.
& i hope feverishly that he still loves me.
& i consider it a blessed good fortune that we don't have video phone because i look hideous and i wonder if he can hear hideousness in my voice.
& i try to sound nonchalant as i return the phone to it's cradle, and find a kleenex for the baby & count down the minutes till our next 'hello'.