Sometimes It Rains

Photo of my bedspread by Rilla. I like the filter she used!

Huck woke up from his nap early, aka crabby. He snuggled with Scott on the couch for a long time, watching Wonderboy play Wii Party. It was cold and rainy here today, a stark change from the past 874 days (a rough estimate) of sunny blue skies. After a while, Scott got up to fold laundry, and I took a turn cuddling with Mr. Grumpy—who brightened considerably at the prospect of a peanut-butter-and-honey tortilla.

Beanie started making him one, and I summoned the rest of the troops for a quick tidy-up. Rilla was delighted to be assigned Wiping the Table—until I told her she couldn’t crawl all over it in the process. (You should have seen her feet. Oh my. She and Huck had been out in the rain earlier, barefoot. It’s still Southern California, after all.)

So there was Miss Rilla crabby as can be, and all of a sudden Huck was wailing like a banshee because Beanie had evidently committed the capital offense of folding his tortilla the wrong way. The nerve. He jumped down from his chair and threw himself on the couch. My sweet, sanguine Bean was understandably a bit put out, and she collapsed over the back of the couch in an exaggerated expression of frustration—and then caught my eye and we both started laughing. It’s hilarious how suddenly it all falls apart. You know, about thirty times a day. And then you refold the tortilla and light a candle on the grumpily wiped table (standing on the FLOOR, how BORING), and it all comes together again. Scott came out from the back room and serenaded us on the ukulele while the rest of us (except tortilla-munching Huck) finished up the tidy, and Rilla set out to draw All the Kinds of Candles in the World. (She came up with: birthday candle, the skinny taper in a cup of glued beans Wonderboy made as an art project, the fat beeswax pillar I found in the cabinet over the pantry, and a candelabra. Oh, and a little lantern we have that holds a tea light.)

Now it’s after dinner (and the table probably needs wiping again). Scott and the older girls are watching Ever After (I just heard a burst of laughter and I bet you anything Drew just picked the prince up over her shoulder and won the hearts of the gypsies) and Rilla is snuggled up next to me in bed, playing a Waldo game. She is wearing a fancy purple Easter dress that belonged to one of her big sisters. Huck is playing with his Thomas trains; Wonderboy’s writing notes on my iPod. Scott brought me a mug of cocoa. The rain has stopped.

I think I use the word ‘snuggled’ a lot when I write about my family.

Also by Rilla. This is my view.