blessed beyond measure

I love hay. It's sort of an outsider love, as I neither produce nor use hay for any purpose whatsoever. And it is also a love that ignores the fact that the mouse invasion of 2014 occurred as a direct result of the mowing of the hayfield beside our house. Combined with a door left open. Who knows when the fascination began, but never does a field dotted with hay bales fail to bring an excited little kid smile to my face. The hay, it just speaks to me. It's profound and deep and so very, very spiritual. I pause here to remind you that I embraced crazy weird long ago. Judge away. End pause. Why do I love hay so? Let me count the ways. The grass grows. The rain falls and the grass grows, all orchestrated in perfect timing by the Gardener himself. Science has figured out the how but never the ultimate why. A mystery that lies with God alone. And oh the sight of those wispy green stalks waving in the summer breeze. A balm for the soul, more soothing and captivatin...

The water warmed up some from our Memorial Day inaugural pool run, though it can't yet be called warm. At least their lips haven't gone all gray purple again. Like last year, we have swimming goals for the summer. Trey needs to be more comfortable going underwater without goggles, our aquatic version of a security blanket. He has tried it some and will get better as we go. There has been a much quicker and less dramatic turnaround with this goal than others past. And this is definitely more a confidence thing than an ability thing. Whereas for Aden, his confidence far, far outpaces his ability. Can't really pinpoint exactly what the problem is, but he cannot tread water. Like at all. He sinks. Which totally voids the laws of physics and anatomy and fully explains why I have had to save his life several times over the last few weeks. He can swim underwater very well and does fine where he can touch. He can jump into deeper water and immediately swim to the wa...

Last year he got a weekend, and then this year's Aden-centric birthday festivities stretched over eight days. And every single last one of those days, Aden proclaimed, "Well, it's my birthday so I'm the boss." We begin with the friend bash, complete with a front-yard blanket full of Legos for free building and a front-porch boombox blaring Kidz Bop. Dude knows what he likes, and he and his friends had enough fun that we had to bribe them to eat dinner, open presents, and have dessert. It was all Legos. Dude's friends know what he likes too. Major, major Mama failure. The candles wouldn't light, no matter how hard we tried. In my fluster over the candles, we didn't even sing "Happy Birthday". Epic fail. The blow was cushioned by having Aden's friends' families all there. We have grown so close, and sat out until waaaay past dark catching up and planning our next get-together. Aden's actual birthday was on Wednesda...

He's seven today. Seven years of this amazing human being swelling our hearts and filling out our family in ways we never could have imagined. I tell you what. He is something , our Aden Levi. All boy, roll and tumble, pick and fight. Nothing physical is ever done halfway. Swimming is wild splashy, running is fast, jumping is high, bike riding is wide slam open. Basketball and baseball remain king. Lego maniac. Last year's birthday, a friend gave Aden his first ever lego set, a camper and jeep. It sat on the shelf for a few months, then pulled out for a boredom buster. And so began the addiction. There are thousands of Legos in our house. In Legos and in life, he will freely create as much as he follows the instructions. It's the same beautiful determined, inquisitive personality he's had since he was a baby. Aden constantly sees things and then rethinks them. If I only had a nickel for every "Mama, what if..." situation completely out of le...