Sometimes I wake up before my kids and sneak in a little personal time. This morning, I sat in my favorite corner to meditate. Then I picked up a notebook and did some brainstorming, and planning. I didn’t even notice when it started to thunderstorm.
Then I heard little feet pattering across the wood floor. Evan, in his summertime shark pajamas, caught a glimpse of me through two doorways and hurried to my lap. He was excited about the approaching storm and pointed out, correctly, that thunderstorms don’t usually happen first thing in the morning.
We snuggled and listened for a bit. Then he remembered the science experiment we did last night and said we should check on the celery.
We ran to the dining room to find our celery stalk in its beaker of blue water (colored with food coloring), drinking it up into its plant veins. Not as much as I thought it would overnight, but we marveled at it for a moment before we heard another pair of feet pattering across the wood floor.
Chloe appeared around the corner, with wildly curly hair and a droopy diaper. She pointed to the window and said “it’s raining!” (“sraineen!”) and then hurried to my lap for shay-shay. She paused from nursing to say, “funder, mama!”
It got extra dark and we watched the rain pour down.
We moved into the kitchen for breakfast which is where my snapshot clicked: Chloe in her highchair and Evan beside her in the eating nook. I was handing over cereal, eggs, toast, grapes, tomatoes, cups of water, I opened the window and a cool, rainy breeze gusted in as I poured steaming hot water to make my coffee, the sound of pouring rain, the thunder, the giggles and squealing, the kitchen crumbs under my bare feet, the zing of salt and pepper on my fried egg and toast, the humidity on my skin. And then, “ALL DONE, MAMA. ALL DONE, MAMA. ALL DONE, MAMA”- Chloe’s alarm went off and we moved on to getting dressed, brushing teeth, skipped sunscreen due to the rain, shoes on.
We ran, screeching laughing, through the rain to the car and off to school.
(unrelated summer snapshot because I didn’t take an actual photo this morning)
Happy summer xoxoxo
the solo mama project 