Butterfly Love

I promised y'all at the beginning of the year I was gonna try to capture the perfect moments God creates in my little life in pictures. And I guess I've been doing that as I've shared pictures along the way, although not officially labeling 'em as such.

But I can honestly tell y'all that I truly am fully in touch with how perfect things are right now -- how lucky I am, how lucky this family is, to be together and healthy and in love with one another in that incredibly amazing way that you can feel in your belly -- you know, that butterfly love? Al came up behind me the other day and wrapped his arms around me and said, "Can you believe we're MARRIED? You and ME? Megan Ferree married ME! Little old ME. It still amazes me sometimes."

And you know what? I know what he means because I feel exactly the same way about him. And also? I look at him with these two kids we made together and it's almost too much for my little soul to take. How did I get chosen to be the wife of THIS man and the Mama of THESE TWO children? Little old ME?

Well, it's absolutely ridiculous, is what it is. Almost criminal, even.

(But I'll take it and just continue to hope nobody'll figure out that there's been a hee-yuge mistake made somewhere in the doling out of the family members.)





Peabody can STAND. And he does. Allatime. Can't get down though, so he does a lot of standing around smiling proudly, followed by standing around whimpering worriedly, followed by standing around crying pitifully. Then we help him down and he crawls off and starts over again somewhere else. Including his bed, where naps should be being taken. AHEM.


For Halloween this year: A rabbit? A beaver? Which do you think?


It's a tough call. He's still trying to decide, too.


Bean finished her first year of pre-school last week. I feel, in some ways, that I pretty much missed the whole thing. She's so grown up now, all of a sudden! What happened to my sweet little baby, y'all?




Our Friday night family bonfires on the driveway've started up again. Bean loves them. We all do. But SOME OF US stop short of standing at the end of the driveway every Friday evening yelling, "Hey ever'body! We're havin' a BONFIRE tonight!"


Although the composition isn't just how I wanted it because I was trying very hard to be stealthy, this is one of my very favorite summer pictures so far.

Yesterday we ran a short errand in the morning, and on the way home, Bean asked, out of the blue, "Mama, may I eat my lunch in my playhouse today?" It'd been raining off and on all morning and my first thought was to point that out, but really, what's a little rain to a four-year-old? So I packed her a little sack lunch and handed her her rainboots and her new butterfly umbrella, and she got out her backpack and shoved everything in there and off she went, about 15 paces across the lawn, and climbed up to her little perch.

I watched as she unpacked her backpack and spread out her lunch on a napkin and sat there looking out over the peaceful back yard, eating her sandwich and drinking her juice. Just inside the door she'd gone out, I fed a cheerful, squealy Peabody his own lunch and stole glances out at Bean, off on her quiet little adventure, and wondered what she was thinking about in that pretty little head of hers.

Perfection.

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I Captured it in My Mind's Eye, Though, and I Don't Think I'll Ever Forget It. Unless My Brain Crashes.

I hope y'all enjoyed your Mothers' Days, whether you are a mother, or have a mother, or love a mother, or couldn't care less about mothers but love you a beautiful spring Sunday. Mine was perfect, and comin' from a perfectionist like me, that's sayin' sumpm. I got flowers and cards and lunch out and Al grilled steaks Saturday night and served me red wine and Hershey's chocolate for dessert and told me we're going on another beach vacation in September and my children gave me a nice wad of spendin' money at Target (so young, yet they GET me so well already.)

But the sweetest gift I got for Mothers' Day I didn't get until yesterday, and it wasn't bought, or wrapped, and it didn't come on a tray with a dandelion and some grass in a paper cup. Nope, this one just appeared before me yesterday on my morning walk, and had tears rolling down my cheeks for blocks after I saw it.

I took both kids with me on the walk, in their double stroller. They rode along side by side, Bean keepin' up constant commentary about the sun, and the sky, and every dog we passed by (we are in the "I want a puppy!" phase, already, and thus we rattle off the standard, "Can we get a puppy NOW please Mama? PLEASE?" conversation just about every minute-and-a-half, which you know I just treasure. TREASURE, people. Not.) and Peabody's head just a'pivotin' and a'swivelin' around on that precious neck of his, under his little sunhat with the sea turtle on the front and the little chin strap under his round little chin, which is beside the point but oh, that blue chin strap on that round little chin, people. Sigh. That boy can rock a chin strap.

Anyway they're riding along keeping each other company and I keep asking Bean, "Is Peabody still awake?" "Ye-es," she answers each time until we get about 15 minutes from home and I ask her again and she looks carefully and says, "Um. Nope."

CURSES. This means he'll Abort Nappy in about 15 minutes and won't sleep again until noon.

And I'm walking along pushin' and fumin' and tryin' to re-plan the day around this new development when I look down and what I see wipes every bit of frustration and irritation and me-centric thinkin' right outta my head. And OH, I wish I'd had my camera with me because describing it in words isn't gonna make YOU cry, though you certainly would have had you seen what I saw with your own eyes.

Down there, in front of me, in the stroller, sat my two children. Bean had gently wrapped her arm around her baby brother and pulled him close so that his sleepy little head lay against her shoulder. Her hand lay softly open, cupping his shoulder, just perfectly still but with this purposeful and protective posture. I've never seen anything that portrayed her love for him quite like it. Usually her loving him comes in these strong and almost-aggressive waves, where she throws herself on him with kisses and tickles until he tumbles over, stunned and giggling.

But this gesture. Her little white cable-knit-sweater-clad arm and that little hand on her baby brother's shoulder?

Oh, my people.

It totally captures one of the things I wish most in this world for my children. That they will have THAT relationship. That love, that gentleness, that protectiveness for one another. That no matter what happens in their lives, they will each always have the other to laugh with and lean on.

(And I also wish that Peabody's head will stay small enough to wear the blue sea turtle hat with the chin strap until he's 40 or I'm dead, whichever comes first. Thank you very much. The end.)


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Isn't it Though? A Lovely Ride? Happy Mothers' Day, Y'all.

On a day like today, with the sun gently filtering through the bedroom window and across our bed in blind-patterned slats -- our bed full of a tumbled jumble of children and coffee cups and laptops and love -- I'm keenly aware of the passage of time.

Five Mothers' Days ago Al and I snuggled alone in this same bed and I unwrapped his gift to me of a carefully-selected diaper bag. We were expecting Bean then. Now, in the blink of an eye, she's confidently toting that same diaper bag for me as our sweet baby Peabody rides along through our daily life merrily perched on my hip.

Next year we'll have a nearly six year old and a full-fledged toddler. And then. Well, then we'll be impatiently listening for their cars in our driveway, delivering them from their own homes far away from us. A Mothers' Day visit, perhaps, and then just the two of us again.

I watched my neighbor Rosemarie wave her youngest daughter down the street last night, her beautiful high school senior and our favorite babysitter, a princess with her prince, off to the Prom for the last time. She stared after them for a long time and turned back to her front door. And in turning she stopped and looked over at me as I sat in my chair on the driveway, watching my own daughter pedal her tricycle over the sidewalk between our homes.

"Oh, I wish she were still that age," she sighed, shaking her head slowly. I smiled back sadly with the deepest sense of understanding and no small amount of my own wistfulness. And as Rosemarie closed her door against the chilly evening, I called Bean to me, lifted her to my lap, buried my nose and lips in her hair and wrapped my arms so tightly around her they were nearly doubled.

I must find a way to enjoy time's steady and unstoppable march, or being a mother is going to break this heart of mine.



James Taylor, singing one of my all-time favorites, The Secret of Life. Hope you have time to give it a listen with the people you love best.

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I Just Really Dig Him

"There you go, honey, your holes are all dug. Now we can put your new shrubs in as soon you go pick them out."

I tossed down the pitchfork, with which I'd been flipping and fluffing mulch at the base of a maple tree, and hurried over to plant a grateful and passionate kiss on my sweet husband's lips.

"What was that for?" he asked, steadying himself.

"For digging those three great holes for me," I answered, smiling.

"Oh, okay," he said, grabbing up his shovel with enthusiasm. "Where would you like your canal?"

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