Lovely little things, 22

This week’s lovely little things.

we take walks

Dinner was winding down, forks had stopped scraping plates and, the toddler was swinging his above his head. And as we approached the transition into after-dinner time, she turned to me and said most eloquently in her little girl voice, “Mommy? Can we go on a walk after dinner, just you and me? I need some Mommy time.” And yes, I melted right there in front of her. And we cleaned off the dishes and slipped our feet into flip flops and our hands into each others’ and we took a walk. And it was cool and quiet and we wound only around the block and right back home again. But for as much as I worry about whether we will take walks, I feel more certain today. But it was the loveliest moment of my week.

happy hour

Last Friday evening as we turned onto our street, my girl began to crane her neck in the backseat. “Where are the flamingos!?!” Because near the end of last summer, our neighbors pulled together a Friday night, happy hour block party. And then they did it again. And again. And each time, our lovely next door neighbor sets a pair of pink flamingos out on her front lawn and those two (who I believe have names but I can’t remember) are now the signal that a party’s goin on. So we gather and the kids run up and down the hill shoving cookies into their mouths and turning sommersaults in the grass while the adults mingle and sip and enjoy that we live in this kind of neighborhood. Not all neighborhoods are so lovely.

fireflies

She saw her first one as happy hour was winding down for us. It was time to take her in. It was past time. But the fireflies had just started to appear and though she’s only four and we haven’t  had all that much time just yet, I still have considered it a failure in my parenting that she had not yet held a tiny bug with a light up tush in her hands. So I caught one for her and she eagerly held out her hands and let it crawl on and this alone seemed so huge for my usually tentative and quiet little girl. It flew away just as quickly but now we’ve officially cracked the spine on the big book of summer magic.

writing

There was a time not so long ago, as in just a few weeks, when I would have begged, borrowed, and stolen for just a few solid hours of time to write. Sitting down with a big ‘ol space to fill with the sound of my fingers on the keyboard seemed like a dream. But this week, I woke up on Monday and I had hours to fill that day. Hours all for me and my words and it felt so luxurious that I didn’t use them as wisely as I should have. But I’m getting better and, more so than any other time in my life to-date, I’m writing.

favorite words

I had too many to choose from this week. Because in addition to writing, I was also reading. But these are the ones that stood out from the crowd because I spent a fair bit of time amongst the tweets this week and this just fits so perfectly:

“It’s a mini-world in which self-invention is ongoing. It’s a little like having fairies at the bottom of your garden. Ask them a question, they help you out. Start a game with them, they play inventively. They like jokes and are often mischievous. Sometimes they tease. They have faces that are beautiful or weird, or the faces of cats, birds, masks, plants… elementals. Once in a whole you get a goblin, but what else can you expect?”
Margaret Atwood talking about Twitter

Have a lovely weekend all.