Happiness Equation

There is a happy feeling spreading all over our little cottage as of late. The stuff of Spring and Summer joy. The weather has been exceptionally lovely for the time of year, there are things being accomplished inside and out, and this week marks the start of baseball for the boys. Neither have played before and they are just crazy excited about it. I'm excited too. Baseball is a sport that I have always loved to watch. What others find slow and boring, I find to be a sport that I can actually keep up with. And I learned to like it young, staying up at sleepovers with my Gram to watch her Yanks, hopefully, beat the Pirates so she could rib our pastor (also my best friend's father) about his team losing to hers. So deep ran this friendly little rivalry that she once gifted him with a black cat name Reggie just to get his goat. I'm loving the interest Cal and Tate are both taking in how the game is played and their enthusiasm to learn. I am hoping their excitement isn't short lived, but for now Tate has asked practically every five minutes when he gets to go to practice and they haven't stopped carrying around their new practice balls and gloves since we bought them.

Calvin even slept with his stuff. I love how it is tucked up in the corner of his (newly debunked) bed. He looks like such a big boy and yet there's Bear, all scruffy and loved, tucked right up with the beginnings of a new stage. Another joy for me is something that isn't showing up in this picture. There is a copy of James and the Giant Peach lying on his dresser. That one he is just beginning, but a bit of magic has happened for Calvin in the last few weeks: he figured out he can read. Oh, he's been ABLE to read for a long time now, but suddenly a light has come on and he's started in on chapter books. The first one took him three weeks, the next one week, the next three days. And what a happy landslide for him. This growing and stretching and BECOMING is why I could never in a million years be sad about Bear being pushed aside for baseballs and novels and all that comes with growing into the next stage of things.

Cal has also recently discovered the radio. I mean, we do listen to the radio in the car and all, but this is an honest to goodness, dial tuned radio. We have been listening to baseball games, local and major league ( I don't know what about this makes me so giddy, except that there is something about a baseball game on the radio that just gets me every time. It's like I'm right back in the back seat of my best girl's parent's car, probably before seatbelt laws, and we're listening to crackly, barely there Pirate's games while being told to "shush" whenever we get silly because Dad can't hear), and some basketball, as well as some great MUSAK for ambiance at dinner last night. Frank Sinatra makes lovely elevator music, I must say.

And finally, we have finally landscaped the front of our house. Much of my joy stems from this little flowering tree, a Lollipop Crabapple. A last minute splurge, it was totally worth it and more blossoms are coming out every day. Truly, what could be happier than a tree called a lollipop?

I wish I had a good picture of what the house looked like when we bought it, with big overgrown bushes and a giant flower bed with almost no flowers. Last year we managed to take down the big flower bed and reuse the stones to create bed close to the house where bushes had been removed. But we have lived with them mostly empty since. Between the empty beds and the sand pits where we have no grass (we're working on it!!), I was beginning to feel like The Beverly Hillbillies. But I love what we chose, all on our own, and can't wait to see it fill in and blossom.

So, yeah. The kids and the plants + filling in and blossoming = happy me.