A Patchwork of Days

He loses two teeth the same day and it takes the Tooth Fairy two days to get here.

He puts in his forty hours and then takes his projector and white board out on the road.

Some days they are like David and Jonathan. Some days they are like David and Saul.

He trots off down the road after a neighbor girl jogging by and another neighbor brings him home.

I've been reading and surfing and reading long some more. I fold down pages. I jot down ideas. Add to My Favorites. Go through books I already have and make a list of books I might want/need to get. I make a tenative schedule and sigh heavy. Wish I had planned better at the beginning.

She gets ready to head out the door, driving away in our car in search of employment and child care and a place to get settled.

We go to church and talk and laugh and sing and listen.Worship. We have sweet fellowship. Then we pray deep.

After supper and dishes, she's dancing with him snuggled in with his pacifier on her shoulder, and singing a song. I ask her what it is and she shows me the video on her laptop. Backstreet Boys. We listen and it's so good so then we search and click the older ones and sing along for a while longer.

He does his math during some quiet at the kitchen counter.

They cut more wood.

It's been a string of these days. Kind of random and stacking up.

Then, in the middle of all of this, last night he slips into our bedroom not very long after prayers and the goodnight song, under the covers next to me. I ask him if it wouldn't be better if he slept in his own bed? He doesn't think so. Not tonight.

After breakfast today, I go back upstairs where he still sleeps, laying parallel to the pillows and the sunshine on one side and the blankets and the quilt pushed down on the other. His eyes blink slow and heavy as I lean over to kiss his forehead and doubly check to see if maybe he has a fever. He does not. I tell him it is getting late and maybe he should get up and have some breakfast and play before it's time for lunch already.  He says he isn't really hungry yet. I put on some make-up and heave the basket of dirty laundry. He's sleeping again.

I climb the stairs and check on him again and it's nearly 10:30 when he calls me from the top step to come here. I sit next to him on the landing. He crawls into my lap, away from that basset who came along up the steps and keeps trying to tuck himself and his damp nose in with us. He says he's hungry now and can he have some Cheerios and a glass of water?

He eats a big bowl full and then some more and drinks all his water. I help him get dressed and he brushes his teeth and heads downstairs to play.  Except for the fact that it is nearly time to start lunch, this is all pretty routine.

But then later, after lunch and after playing a short time with the others, he comes into the kitchen and says he doesn't really feel like playing and asks me if he can take a nap? I glance over at the clock. It's one o'clock.

So we decide together that the couch on the middle floor right in the middle of everything would be good. I get his blanket, the one this sister made him when he was first born, and his pillow. In the time it takes me to change a diaper and tuck another one in, he's sleeping again. And this is a rare and unusual event for this one.  He doesn't wake for two-and-a-half hours.

But for the rest of the day, one would never even know that this day has been any different from all the rest. Maybe because lately, they're all a little different like that. He ate his supper, cleaned up toys, we had our family movie night just as we do every week, he put his jammies on and brushed his teeth and said his prayers and goodnight.

And I'm thinking-- that I hope and am certain that all these unmatched patches of days are being stitched together and made into something bright and warm and comforting, a beautiful cover over this family I love, so that on some random day in the middle of it all, we can just rest under it. A patchwork of beautiful days.