Things I love

1. The feeling of a 22 pound baby boy snuggled up against me as I go downstairs. The sound of his babbling and the way he reaches for me everytime he sees me. When he sees the piano he makes little wimpering sounds until someone sits down with him and lets him play.

2. Hamburgers or anything else fresh off the grill

3. The sound of croaking coming from all the ponds and swamps nearby. When I hear this for the first time each spring I roll down all the windows and listen in rapture. This is the song of spring after a long New England winter.

4. Topher's new glasses - red frames with thick black temples. Very hip. He is his father's boy.

5. Homemade pretzels hot from the oven and a houseful of little friends eager for a bite. Rolling them out with my good friend Jen who can do anything and noting that, amazingly, there is one thing I can do that she can't.

6. Talking with Jay. About art and music and children and our friends, the Devlins, who are taking the discussions. About books and writing and general conference and his job. About sticks and stones. But not about the cost of gasoline, or the fact that the missionaries are coming over for dinner and confirmed with him and not with me, or that he caught an older gentleman who stood up in Sacrament Meeting and fainted while I sat 3 chairs away, totally engrossed in a talk and didn't see. (I only learned that this happened tonight from another church member who observed the whole thing from several rows behind and the opposite side of the chapel!!!)

7. Emergency lullabies composed spontaneously by LG when Lincoln starts crying with words like, "Don't cry, my little candy heart," repeated over and over very softly to random melodies.

8. Sleeping through the night

9. Ronan's love of children and his attention to their needs. I call him "The friend of children" like Joseph Smith was sometimes called because he is. I love this tender side of a tough little boy.

10. My children's giggles when I read from the Dragonslayer's Academy series at night. The way they are understanding the scriptures and feeling the love of the Savior. Their courage to stand alone in a school where there are only 4 other members of the church. Their kindness.