for getting out. it was a wake up with a migraine and stagger around the house for two hours with an ice pack pressed to one eye while you wait for your medication to kick in kind of morning. audra was working, roo was cranky; because i'd elected to nap when he napped instead of showering i felt greasy and depressed. something needed to be done.

so we went to the park. it's close by---just a mile walk along the bay, on the bike path that follows the old railroad tracks through the empty fields of the nature preserve, through the gardens of people who live in nicer neighborhoods than ours---but it feels like such an undertaking now, and i always need to convince myself that the trip is worth it. it was, of course: on the way we found pumpkins growing by the side of the road, and we stumbled upon someone's raucous backyard wedding reception. at the park we were engaged in conversation by the kind of friendly, generous woman whose glossy hair and french manicured toenails would have been intimidating if she had not seemed so eager to know us. we nursed our babies together in the shade. 

*

for roo's 5 PM giggle-fits. they are a tremendous improvement over the 5 PM weepies of early spring, when the only thing that could console his tiny, red-faced screaming self was for me to sing to him from the hymnal---song after song, without ceasing---for an hour or more in the deepening twilight. (he particularly liked the songs in the section labeled COMMITMENT AND ACTION. "no storm can shake my inmost calm," i'd sing, to soothe myself.)

now, getting him dressed in his nightclothes, i lay his onesie across his stomach and he bursts into hysterical laughter. i take it off and he laughs even more, his mouth open so that i can see his new teeth, the shards of them rising out of his gums. and then all at once it's over, and he's so tired, and i take him in my arms and up to bed.