A Smidgen of Stuff

Little Hansie boy is eight weeks old. He smiles and makes small sounds. He can hold his head up. His legs aren’t purely skin and bone anymore. And he’s lost that puffiness under his eyes. Still, for all of that, he seems quite newborn-like. But in another eight weeks? I imagine he will be all baby and not a bit newborn. May as well start filling out college applications.

Daisy and Goldie are in the school play. And Abe is running track. Which all means that I never see my older children at all. (Nor, selfishly, do I have their help with dinner and babies and the like!)

But, I did dazzle my older children twice recently. Once when I promptly replied, after hearing Abe grumble something about needing to find what neurotransmitter was involved with the parasympathetic nervous system, that it was norepinephrine he was after. And again when Abe asked Daisy if she knew the chemical equation for sugar and I spouted (before I even knew I was saying it), “C6-H12-O6”. It was interesting – reciting those small, near-forgotten facts to my children when knowing them at all reminded me so much of a very different me. The one who was often sitting in the university library studying nervous systems and chemical compositions while her children . . . didn’t exist at all. At least not in this mortal realm. What was that person doing here? In my home? Telling that near-forgotten information to my nine children?

I don’t know. But knowing all about norepinephrine is much less of an interesting accomplishment to me these days than the more recent improvement in my patience. It has improved. A lot. And it’s because oh my goodness I’ve been given so much practice. Mostly from dear Mette (bless her heart) who is quite literally clinging to my legs and sobbing most of the day.

Anyway. Over and out. I’m off to clean up a jar of spilled peanuts (of all things).