Maybe not a mistake

Summer's pollution gauze has lifted and the clear blue of fall is far far above us as we sit outside without bitching about heat or bugs. The neighbor uses heavy machinery and yells in Spanish to his friends as they cut down leaves, branches, trunks high above the roofs. My mother watches earnestly, purporting an interest in botany and calling us often to watch as the men leap from branch to cherry-picker and wood crashes past them to the ground.

The babies lurch more quickly and talk to each other in guttural growls only they understand, punctuated more and more often with actual human language. The girl plays with shoes, the boy complains eloquently enough without many words. The little boy fills the vacuum of noise left by his brother's post-operative silence and loves the kitten until it says "me." The big boy is healed by his brother and sister's weekend visit and makes pizza from foam and titans from pixels. The biggest boy is quiet, enigmatic. The big girl is resilient and innocent, still cheerful despite bullying and uncertain supervision.

I read other mothers' blogs and the love shines from them, and I wonder what I'm missing, why my children so often seem like something to survive. This weekend, though, I see it. Sometimes they almost glow.