Here is the thing:
There is nothing like the mess of small children.
Hurricanes have nothing on them.
The boots askew on the floor.
The little coats and hats and suits draped on tables and chairs.
The many, many things they need to survive at grandma’s all akimbo in the living room.
The carrier
The diaper bag
The extra clothes
Pinky the doll
A bottle
(A handful of very small crackers to drop in the cracks in the couch. Must be where they got that name.)
Books
Puzzles
Blocks
The grand-babies are so small, you’d think we would hardly notice their presence. Between them they weigh about the same as the four month old puppy.
(Pick up her water dish, quick.)
The infant sleeps blissfully.
Her cousin, a bouncy two,
Pounds the piano,
Leaps off the bottom stair,
Tugs your leg, speaking Thai, I think, very rapidly and with much feeling.
She is sure you know what she means.
Here’s the thing:
When you balance that pillow on your head for her, you have hair again, and are twenty-five instead of fifty-five.
And I don’t even need to find my glasses to see how pleased you are with this very fine mess of children we have all made.
