rafts
playing with friends
meeting Scruffy
family dinner
cookie buddies
(When I brought out the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I'd made, HynnHee tried to quietly tell me, "she's diabetic," nodding in the direction of where her daughter, Stephanie, was sitting with her grandmother, HynnHee's mom - who didn't speak English and I don't speak Korean. Understanding, I quickly hid the cookies away and brought out yummy fresh fruit for Stephanie, but I'd caught that longing look her grandmother had given the disappearing cookies. And so, quietly, off and on throughout the afternoon when Stephanie didn't see, I snuck a cookie to HynnHee's mom who beamed happily at me. We may have come from different cultures, and could not speak to eachother in words, but we each understood and appreciated getting to enjoy a home-made sweet without being attacked by children/grandchildren for it. Later I had a chance to ask HynnHee when/how they'd discovered Stephanie was diabetic and saying how difficult that must be for a child who was too little to understand why she couldn't have a cookie, but HynnHee looked confused and said her daughter wasn't diabetic, her mother was. Ooops! - I told her I'd mixed it up and I'd been really careful with Steph, but sneaking cookies to grandmother all afternoon!)
seeing young big wondrous eyesenjoying the "deep woods"
(my little city cousins were fascinated with, and in love with, "the deep woods")
joyful music
deep nightmare-less sleep EVERY night
rest, peace, joy
getting to just be a mom
clean up w/ leaf blower (thank you Wally!)
fanatical need for symmetry and straightness in tent folding (sorry boys)
TONS of laundry afterward - but SO, SO worth it!
