Story Behind the Picture: Apples

My mother asked that I share a funny story this week. And, as you know, I always do what my mother says.

I have two boys. I think everyone who follows along here knows this by now. I think everyone also knows that they are not exactly quiet, reserved, timid little children. Lately, my job as mother primarily involves refereeing battles that start promptly at 4:04 p.m. (when the bus delivers my eldest at the end of the school day) and don't end until bed time. Or later. And by "referee" I mean actually pulling children off one another when it starts to get ugly. I should wear a mouth guard and collect a stipend.

So what's with the apples? I was trying to harness a little creativity during the epic snowstorms that have pummeled us since January. After a few days of snow-induced captivity, apples were the only colorful thing I could could find in the house. That and lots of tiny Legos that I accidentally found with my feet. Very comfortable.

As I'm lining up apples on my windowsill, I hear the fight begin to brew:

"No, Danny, noooooooo!"

Then, silence.
I decide to continue on with the apples.

"Danny!!!!! Stop it!!!!" *heavy thumping noises from above*

I'm still debating as to whether my referee skills are required, when I hear Lucas yell (at decibel 11):

"Danny! I do not belong in the hamper! I am not clothes, I am SOMEBODY!"

It was, at this point, that I was actually proud of my loud, brawling, scrappy 3 year-old. That's right, Lucas, you ARE somebody. Nobody's going to put YOU in a hamper. Unless it's your big brother, who still managed to get one of your legs in the aforementioned hamper before I reached the bedroom and, once again, had to pull you children off of one another.

Great art is not created while your children are trying to shove one another in a dirty clothes receptacle. The apples, above, are not great art. We ate them later for snack (out of desperation because we were out of cookies and there was 97 feet of snow on the ground). I'm okay with sharing the not-great-art here. It happens. This week was about the story, about my boys who love one another with great devotion, and about always trying to be creative, even if people are shoving one another in hampers while you try to work.

Story Behind the Pictures: "My Funny Valentine" and "Offering"

So I have a little obsession with hands - I write stories about them, I photograph them, and I constantly wish my own were not showing early signs of the same arthritis which afflicts my mother and grandmother. My great-grandmother possessed such lovely hands that her husband decreed she wear white gloves when working behind the counter at their jewelry store, lest the gentlemen customers become smitten by their beauty. Mine? Well, they've been calloused by years of rowing, gripping my pen the wrong way, handling and training horses, and changing more diapers that I could possibly count. But what I love most are the hands of my children, still plump with baby fat, unable to tie shoes, yet oh-so-able to open doors they shouldn't and pull the dogs' tails. My two year-old (whose little finger is pointing to the red candy) snuck up on me as I was taking this photo...apparently he thought I wouldn't notice him giggling and stealing the cinnamon dot that formed the bottom point of the heart. The next photo is the hands of my four-year-old, who has grown into the most lovely, lively boy. He often asks if we can donate our extra toys and food to those who need it and helps me to collect and pack bags to bring to the city shelters.

Just yesterday I held my eldest's hand as he was prepped for surgery, giving it one final squeeze before he was wheeled away from me to the doors of the operating room. When he woke up a few hours later, he reached for me, and I sat thinking of the first time each of my boys grasped my fingers in their own, how we communicate first through our hands before any of our other senses have fully developed.

So, long after their wonderful baby dimples have faded from the backs of their hands, long after they can dress, feed, and even drive themselves, long after they've refused to hold my hand in public, I will have these photographs to remind me of how sweet and tiny (and occasionally troublesome!) those little hands once were.