Watching caterpillars poop, and other joys of summer

The boys and I are home today, enjoying perhaps the most perfect weather Minnesota has dished up all year. We spent an hour in the hammock this morning, swinging in the shade and reading the third Harry Potter. The boys are currently taking turns in the hammock, wrapping each other up and pushing wildly. The laughs are intermingled with terrified screams. As long as the laughs outnumber the screams, I don't interfere. Up until now the summer has been a bit hectic, with work, planning the Croixathlon, the kids bussing out to daycamp, and altogether too much soccer. We're laying low this week and loving it. Here are some of my favorite moments from June:

• Watching our two pet monarch caterpillars so closely that we just saw one poop- kind of up close and personal. We thought we were peering at its head, but that was soon proved incorrect. (A 'not-joy' was having one of the original caterpillars commit suicide by diving into the water jar, and then another try to escape- after looking everywhere, including the bottom of my shoes, I found it hightailing down a table leg. I recaptured the escapee and now it is happily munching imported milkweed. And pooping. A lot.)


• Sitting in the shade in one of our swinging chairs and watching the boys entertain themselves. Eli tells himself elaborate stories and acts them out when he thinks I'm not looking. Theo talks to himself with his lips curled down over his teeth. That has been his story narration style ever since he was a ear-infected toddler with constant snot running down his upper lip. He kept it curled tightly down, and that pose reasserts itself whenever he is thinking hard.


• Seeing Theo in the garden, quietly collecting pea pods in a pouch he made out of his shirt. The second trip where he put freshly picked strawberries in this shirt pouch made me less happy, but things wash out. Or they don't.


• Having the Neske-Moens over for dinner and seeing all five boys piled into the hammock sucking on popsicles. Later they all moseyed over to the garden and were all talking non-stop as they popped strawberries into their mouths. I am certain a few slugs were swallowed in the process. But these particular slugs are real small. Probably chock full of protein.


• Having the boys return on the little mini-bus from DayCroix, filthy and exhausted, but full of stories and songs and adventures.


• Theo telling me that he 'discovered a new speed' at daycamp and now can run faster than ever before. This 'new speed' keeps coming up. Like in: "Tonight at soccer I am going to be hard to stop since I discovered my new speed."


• Watching Eli watch skits at the DayCroix campfire. The old 'throw water on the unsuspecting counselor' skit suddenly became new again when it caused Eli to throw back his head and guffaw.