My adventures in nesting have taken me to the sand pile -- the foot-and-a-half tall, five-feet-across mound of sand that our landlords left in the driveway with the words, "we can come move that this week"... two years ago when we moved in. It's on a side section of the driveway that we didn't really need at the time, so we weren't in a tremendous hurry to see it gone. Now that they're going to be repaving my street, though, and the housemates who usually park out front will have to park in the lawn if I don't reclaim the concrete, I had strong motivation to get it moved.

Friday I'd finally unearthed the majority of the sand (which, after two years, was covered in several inches of mulch and a dense mat of English ivy) and started shoveling it into a large rolling trash bin. When I stuck my shovel in for the third or fourth time, it came out with something on the end that looked like a heat-wilted Mentos candy. Odd. When I set the shovel down, the "candy" split... and I discovered it was, in fact, a spiny lizard egg.

I was instantly grieved that I'd broken it;  besides having a soft spot in my heart for babies in general, I have great affection for the spiny lizards in my yard. They're resilient, they're docile, they grow to be almost a foot long, and -- of particular interest to me -- their favorite foods include mosquitoes and roaches. Since we live near a creek and encounter more than our share of both, I'm sure you understand why I want to do everything I can to keep them happy living at the Abbey.

Much to my delight, when I looked where I'd been digging, I discovered the egg I'd inadvertently broken was only one of a sizable clutch of them. I'd uncovered another five or six. I decided the next day I would transfer them into a bucket of sand so they'd have a safe place to incubate while I continued clearing the driveway. Meanwhile, I scooped the sand back over them for safekeeping.

When I returned to the sand pile the next day and brushed back the sand to see the eggs again, I saw that one had opened... about the same time that I saw its former occupant, just shy of two inches long, scramble down the sand pile and into my yard! I grabbed an empty jar from the garage, set it beside the clutch of eggs, and gently scooped the whole nursery inside -- not because I intended to keep them in captivity. mind you, but just so I could watch them hatch, appropriately commemorate their birth and show you these:

 

As someone counting down the last several weeks before she gets to see her own baby 'hatch,' I found great encouragement in watching someone else's babies make a successful debut... and as someone who knows I'm whacked out on pregnancy hormones, you shouldn't be surprised to learn that as one of the babies ran up onto my hand for a moment before taking to the fence, I found myself sighing, "They grow up so fast."

... we could learn to appreciate the people in our lives like we do once we've lost them.

If you're anything like the rest of us, the news I posted in yesterday's entry* immediately drove you to thoughts about your own loved ones. Perhaps, like me, your first thoughts were of your own small children... and how many accidents befall them every day, and how you never expect to need more than a wet washcloth, a "kissit" or an ice pack to make the world right again... and how utterly impossible it is to imagine your child being there with you and, in the next instant, being forever gone.

*(Today I learned that the circumstances surrounding the death of my friend's nephew may or may not be as they were first relayed to my friend and me. Since I obviously don't know the entire story -- and in fact, I never may -- I've opted not to post a retraction but also not to blog any more on the situation. Please don't let that keep you from praying for the grieving family, as their need for it has surely not diminished.)

The past two days have been some of the richest I've known with my son -- it's as though the rest were merely pencil sketches and these were deep and vivid images, saturated with color and music and life. He's been lavishing me with hugs, kisses and infectious laughter as though he understood why I needed more of them right now. Today he spent two and a half hours standing at the sink, playing with the bottle brush in the water and washing the same half-dozen dishes over and over to keep me company while I cleaned in the kitchen. Declining a Muppet video and even a snack break (!), he stayed at my side as I relentlessly scrubbed the stove's burner plates, forcing them to relinquish the past two years' worth of cooking souvenirs. We sang a lot. We high-fived a lot. We changed his sopping wet clothes a couple times when the dishes fought back. We had a blast.

As delighted as I was with today, what grieves me tonight is knowing the part of me that took him for granted until two days ago will eventually do so again. It isn't something I can prevent -- familiarity, after all, breeds more familiarity even when it doesn't breed contempt -- but I intend to wring every last drop from this presently heightened sense of appreciation I have for him. I hope to tell him with my words and my actions the same thing I've told him since the day in his sixth week in utero that I thought I was having a miscarriage: "I know I wasn't promised tomorrow with you, but I want you to know I'm thankful for every day I have you with me."

I got a somber phone call from one of my best friends a few hours ago. This morning her two-year-old nephew -- who was in her wedding with me a few short months ago --  was rushing out the front door to give his mommy hugs and kisses as she left for work when he slipped and fell. He struck his head on the porch steps and died instantly.

When his mother called 911 and the police arrived to take a report, they discovered she had a warrant for an unpaid traffic ticket... so within moments of watching her youngest child die, she was placed under arrest.

Please be in prayer for my friend and her family as she drives to Tennessee to be with her brother and sister-in-law in this time of unthinkable sorrow.

Kyrie Eleison.

Forgive the lapse in correspondence, dear reader. I've been busy. No, "busy" is an understatement. I've been nesting. If you don't know the difference between the sudden urge to clean stuff and actual nesting, here's a real-life example from the field guide:

When you see a box of miscellaneous items in need of sorting and placement and make a mental note to take care of it the next weekend, you're experiencing a garden-variety urge to tidy up. When you see a box of miscellaneous items in need of sorting and placement, level your gaze at it and warn it in a low growl, "YOU'RE ON MY LIST," you might be nesting.

If you recall, I went through something like this when I was pregnant with Little Man too -- but the onset has begun far earlier than last time... and with a vengeance, too. In the past two weeks I have begun carrying out strategic raids on the boxes, bags, stacks and piles of things in my closet (and my son's) (and my kitchen) (and the play area) (and the hall storage) (and my garage) (and the bathroom) that I've just been manuevering around since we moved into the Abbey nearly two years ago, passing them along on Freecycle and Craigslist to the people who asked the nicest and/or could get them out of my house the soonest. I've done laundry every day for these two weeks, and now --alas -- I'm left with nothing to wash but spare cotton blankets and random yet-to-be donated articles of clothing. 

Today's exploits will include finding a home for about half of my sizable yarn stash, returning to my hall closet only the things that actually belong there, donating all FORTY POUNDS of half-used bottles of shampoos, soaps and lotions to someplace where they'll be better appreciated, retrieving the last box of my son's infant clothes from the garage to see how many of them his sister can wear, and... doing a little happy dance because it's only taken me two weeks to undo clutter that it took years to accumulate.  I think only a house fire could have done the job faster, but they're known for being undesirably thorough...

I'd like to take this opportunity to offer public thanks and accolades to the guys who live with me -- five of the bravest men I know -- for not conspiring to kill me in my sleep after all this. Or at least not going through with it.

More later. There's a big box of stuff in the other room taunting me, and I'm off to go rain down hellfire on its misbegotten ass. I mean, um, sort and recycle it.

Little Man, now quickly approaching his third birthday, bears the behavioral stretch marks of a baby turning into a boy: he eats with silverware but still occasionally paints himself with poo; he blows bubbles in his milk but can handily clean it up when it overflows the rim of his glass; he'll throw down UFC-style with any of us, but as soon as someone says "ow!" he hastens to offer "kissits" to the injured party.

That same duality presented itself the other night when, after we'd put him to bed, he walked out to the top of the stairs and cried. Having torn the cover off a favorite Golden book, he was inconsolable until Daddy reattached it with packing tape. He said thanks and went back to bed. Then, twenty minutes later, we heard him yelling again. His daddy got up, rounded the corner and prepared to go upstairs and have The Bedtime Talk with our son. When he returned to the living room, though, he was beaming with pride and looked as though he might be fighting back tears.

Mister Nygren had sneezed a few moments prior; Little Man had heard it and, in his barely-still-conscious state, stumbled back to the landing to cry out, "Bessyou, Dad! Dad? Bessyou, Daddy!"

He just wanted to bless his Daddy... and, in more ways than he knew, he had.