Sunday

It was a busy day. Rising early after a late arrival home, I zoomed off with my two eldest children. Our piano teacher is the music director at my mom's church, and she had asked my children to come play a duet for the offertory portion of both services. The sanctuary was quiet when we first arrived, and they did a quick sound check. Liturgy, sermon, pass the peace...offertory.

They played beautifully.

I cried.

Why? Well, my first two children are very, very different from each other. They are only thirteen months apart, but they have had to work to find things in common. I loved hearing them practice this piece, even during the times when they were disagreeing about the tempo of the song. Through the request of this dear teacher, they were required to learn new methods of communication and compromise. I cried because their hard work resulted in music that was beautiful, and I cried because I was proud of the relationship between my children that resulted in such a creative blend of piano and keyboard, daughter and son, grace and zest.

We zoomed home again, and my son had all of four minutes to change into his Boy Scout uniform and hop in the van. It was time to leave for a week of camp with Dad and brother. Ever since we have returned from Oregon, though, Sophie the Wonder Dog gets nervous about people leaving. She assumes we are all abandoning her again, so she worries. This time she took matters into her own paws and just got in the van with the packs and sleeping bags. She was happy to get out, though, once she realized four of us would be staying home with her.

I then collapsed on the couch to think deep thoughts about decluttering (my job while the scouts are at camp) and proceeded to fall asleep for three hours. Last night and today are the calm before the storm; tomorrow we tackle the clutter and banish it, once again, from the kingdom. It is so much cooler (phew!) which will make the grunt work more pleasant.

I am finding my house without husband and older boys so quiet, so empty. I've never been away from any of these special men for a week! When I wake without my husband's voice announcing the arrival of my mug of coffee, I will thank God for a kind husband and stumble down the stairs to do my own java supply; when I haul the trash cans back up the hill tomorrow morning, I will thank God for my hard working sons who usually have this not-so-fun chore. When the radio is quiet, the laundry pile half empty, the leftovers enormous as I adjust my cooking amounts, I will remember the ones who are off in the mountains doing scoutish things like polar bear swims at 6:30 a.m., merit badge work, service projects, and team building work with a troop of squirrelly, smelly scout campers.

And, I will savor the time to look in the eyes of the ones here at home. I can guarantee that in the spaces of time between cleaning out this and that, throwing or storing more of the same, we will talk more than usual, I will listen a lot more than usual, they will have a chance to earn some good pocket change as they help me with my enormous cleaning projects, and we will be able to enjoy the treat of being a smaller unit. We'll be ever-so-ready to expand back to our usual size on Saturday afternoon, though. Have no fear.