Yes. We Had Fun.

The last twenty-four hours have been a whirlwind and I can't believe it's still morning and everything is peaceful and quiet again. But it is.

Owen came to visit me yesterday afternoon and we had a delightful time, that boy and I. He has changed so profoundly in the last two weeks that I can barely understand it. He is not a baby any more. He's just not. I'm not sure what to call him. A pre-toddler? He is trying to toddle. He rolls over, he scoots, he is pulling up, he can walk around things holding on. He has a slightly annoying new habit of, when not getting what he wants (usually to be held), he makes this fake-cry-whining noise and it's hard to take seriously. "Oh, Owen," I say to him in my grandmother voice. "Is that really necessary?"
He seems to think it is and by golly, it works because I pick him up, of course, or do whatever it is that he wants me to do which is sometimes to put him down on the floor. He is delighted to be able to sit on the floor like a big guy and to view the world from that vantage point.

He and I did several turns around the yard in the stroller and he's still fascinated by the chickens. Here is is, posing with a chicken planter.

I took yesterday's warmth as an opportunity to put him in nothing but a t-shirt and a cloth diaper. He seemed very happy about that and we enjoyed the every-twenty-minute changing experience. "Now you're a hippie baby," I told him. He laughed.

Here he is taking a nap on the back porch with Zeke.

I'm afraid to leave him on a bed so I put him in his car seat and buckled him in loosely. He's comfy there.

I boiled eggs for tomorrow's egg dying event. I can't believe that it was at last year's event that Kathleen brought over the peeps which have grown up to be my lovely sister-wife hens and their husband, Elvis. What changes a year can make. Owen was still in his mama's belly, and I had no idea what to do with chickens.
Well. We have all figured it out quite nicely. Or at least well enough.

Thirty-six eggs of already-blue, green and brown. Riches!

When K&B got here I was indeed holding Owen on my hip. I had not changed my clothes or taken a shower. I had been peed on. My hair was in the grandmother braids they'd been in all day. What could I do but say, "Well, this is what it is?" and it didn't matter. K grabbed Owen who sat on his hip without protest for quite a long while and B hugged him up and made grandmama noises at him. Here we are, I thought, and I remember when she was pregnant with her first baby, the one who has grown up and made her a grandmother. Damn!

Lily came and got her son and he was ready for a long, good nap, because the one he'd taken on my porch had only lasted for about twenty minutes and I know she appreciated that because she'd been up since way before dawn. She made her polite greetings, she grabbed up her boy and he snuggled down on her shoulder and then she buckled him up and took him home. He'll be back today AND tomorrow so I let her take him.
Sigh.

And then showers were taken and martinis were mixed and we did the porch-sit, the yard-walk. The chickens were admired, the salad greens picked. Everyone pitched in and after approximately eight hours, a shrimp salad and a loaf of bread were produced. I have to say that hilarity did ensue during the dinner preparations AND we talked with another old friend from high school who lives out in California (hey Sally!) and hearing her voice was like a shot back into time.

Alright, I should be embarrassed to post this picture but what the hell? Not like I'm naked, dancing on the counter. That came later.
Just kidding!

And here's another with Ms. B and the boys:

There was another picture of those same three people which I shall NOT be posting. Ever. Let us just say that none of us will ever be running for office.

And then dinner and then, not long after, bed. We are, after all, old. Not as old as Pearl (see her there with her head under the tablecloth?) but old enough.

We ate our breakfast this morning outside- impossibly golden yellow scrambled eggs with grits and deer sausage and biscuits.

The bees buzzed in the wisteria and the birds came to the feeder and then I saw this:

A bluebird. He was checking out the nesting box Mr. Moon put up last year and yes, these birds are so beautiful and so blue and there is a reason they call them the bluebirds of happiness. I have said it before and I will say it again- it is as if the entire blue of the sky were compounded and compressed into one tiny patch of bird-shape. I do so hope they bless us with their presence this year.

And now K&B have left to head up to Albany to spend the rest of the weekend with B's mama and Mr. Moon is working on a sign-making project and here I am, happy and content.

I want to thank everyone so much who wrote about the Lexapro weaning situation. It was good to know that the "zings" as Aunt Becky so aptly called them, are normal. They are almost gone today. And I feel good. I feel as content and stable as I've felt in a long, long time. My life-situation has changed tremendously since those dark days when I got on the drug and I think I may be okay now without it. If I find myself creeping back to that place, I will get back on the medication or discuss it with my doctor to try a new one. I promise.

In the meanwhile, there is spring, there is wisteria, there is new growth everywhere and there is Owen. There are chickens and there is this family of mine. There is the possibility of a bluebird family. There are my friends.

And because I know what crazy feels like and because I know how it was when I went insane, I am all the more grateful for this time of feeling not-insane. For being able to look around and just...be...here.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go wash diapers. And eat some of the incredibly luscious cheese cake B brought which she had made and which is lying in wait in the bottom of my refrigerator. Why should one only eat breakfast dessert when one is in New Orleans?

I'll leave you with that question which you may answer however you choose. If I were you, though, I'd go out and find a cheesecake.

Happy Saturday, y'all.

Love....Ms. Moon