Lucky

My children save my life every day. They are a little force field around me, keeping the bad things at a safe distance. I can never take myself too seriously. I can never go more than about an hour without laughing. I can never feel unloved. And while there are moments that my fear or grief threaten to take over, I really do not have the opportunity to drown in them. Cash: Mommy, do you know what? I love you mommy. Josephine, as I remove a painful splinter from her foot: You know mom, that's not a pretend foot, that's my foot. Harriet, as I scold her for pouring all the hand soap and shampoo into the tub when she was supposed to be napping, correcting me: no mom, there's a little shampoo left. (Pronounced: there's a yittle shampoo yeft.) All this in the few hours before dinner today, as we went to the park, discussed the merits of alphabet soup versus peace-sign mac and cheese, fed and changed Sammy, and cleaned up the house before Daddy came home. They adore Samson so much -- it is a constant chore to keep them from loving him into a serious bodily injury. I talk all about Samson in this space, but it is the four of them together who motivate me, fuel me, and protect me for what lies ahead. I do not wake up or go to sleep without knowing this: I am lucky.

Samson did fine in his bronchoscopy yesterday and we were home in the late afternoon. He felt awful and had a difficult night, followed by sort of a woozy day, but he seems ok now and is in my lap chatting with me as I type this. No word on bacteria growth from his lung samples, which means either that none grew, or that no one bothered to call me. Sometimes my children also save other people, like the nurse I should have been phone-stalking today about bronch results.

My week is wrapping up, and to balance all the things I don't know, there are many things I do know. Tomorrow will start with four cuddly, hungry children who need to be dressed and fed and generally organized. My day will be full of goofy, adorable moments that I think I will remember forever and I will forget by the next day. I will think my brain is rotting from not being a lawyer, but then I will be asked extremely hard questions, like what is the static electricity that makes Harriet's hair stand up like that? and why is that fly dead? I will go to bed tired, but loved more than I ever thought possible. Lucky.