Yesterday I was picking up in Megan and Sam’s room (well, not really “picking up” picking up would imply that I was sort of tidying. In reality, I was kicking a path to the dressers to put away their clean clothes and tossing anything recognizable as dirty clothes into laundry bins) when I noticed that there are all these little post-it-notes all over the room. On the dresser, on the wall, stuck to the end of the bunkbed and to the back of the door. There are even a couple stuck to the floor ,where you can see floor. They read:
Graceful
Funny
Kind
Beautiful
Clever
One of a kind
I asked Meg and Sam about them, and they told me that these notes are part of “The Plan”. (As an aside, I’ve always thought the children had a plan. They act in concert too convincingly for all of it to be a coincidence. I mean, think about it. Only serious planning accounts for their ability to tag-team me into insanity each day. Do you really believe for a minute that when all three of your children come downstairs after bedtime, one every five minutes for a solid hour and thirty-five minutes, while maintaining a strict rotation…that it wasn’t preplanned? Drink of water my arse. It’s a plan. I knew it.)
“The Plan?” I ask…trying to play it cool, if I act too eager they will know that I’ve known about the plan all along and they won’t reveal their cunning goal. (Joe claims they are trying to get the house. I feel that it is something much darker).
“Yeah, our Plan to become something” Meg says. “Every time we come into our room we remember what we want to end up as”.
I’m stunned. Simply stunned. I’ll pause here while we all appreciate the rewards of motherhood, actually…wait, I’ll throw in another load of laundry and pick the underwear up off the kitchen floor while you all appreciate the rewards of motherhood. There are days (admittedly, most of them are while you are picking underwear up of the kitchen floor while realizing that you no longer wonder how it was that underwear got to be on the kitchen floor) that you wonder why you are in this racket after all. Last night wasn’t like that.
This morning Meg went off to school wearing a shawl. Not a poncho, like every other kid in her school, but a shawl.

One of a kind. (The kid and the shawl)
Just to prove that I’m making good time…

the second mitten is half done, and…

The almost finished left front of the Rhinebeck Sweater (which SO needs a better name). Not even breaking a sweat yet, and I dropped a line to Aunt Maggie in Newfoundland, and she’s sending two more skeins. Furthermore, she’s sending them quickly. (I may love Aunt Maggie.)