Blue Skies

I love looking at the sky, day or night.  I see so much beauty there!  At night, I trace pictures with the stars and the moon.  During the day, I see the prettiest shade of blue, sometimes accented with clouds that take shape with my imagination, sometimes clear with only the golden sun, and at other times, darkening to a gray as a storm approaches.

Tuesday was a day where the sun shone brightly, bringing warmth to the earth, and life to the plants.  Tuesday was a day for the children to play outside, where they could run in the back yard, free to yell and shout, and to move like the wind.  Tuesday was hot! Tuesday, I had a baby who was fussy because she was teething and wanted to be held.  Tuesday I could attend to her while the older ones whooped and hollered.  Tuesday I had to put Gabriela down for a nap like always.

The children took advantage of this short term of absence by turning on the water hose and spraying one another wildly.  They had a blast and by time I got outside, they were soaking wet, cooled off from the water, and laughing joyously.  I turned off the hose and let them play outside a while longer, giving the sun a chance to dry them off as they enjoyed the rays of life it brought to their little bodies.  After a while, I got them each a towel, dried them off, and sent them to their rooms to change clothes.  They then proceeded to play very nicely together and even let me join in the fun as we put Nathaniel's Transformers back together.

Time flew and I made them boiled eggs, vegetables, milk, and buttered bread for lunch.  I got them seated and proceeded to go upstairs to get Gabriela who had awakened from her nap.  She had wet through her clothes, so I changed her diaper, changed her clothes, and changed the crib sheets before joining the children.  They were, after all, eating lunch.

They were not eating lunch.  They were experimenting with the powdered food coloring that had been on the top shelf of the upper cabinets inside a "hard to open" box.  They had painted their eggs the most beautiful shade of blue I have ever seen.  They wore the brightest shade of blue on their mouths and their hands.  They had feathered the powdered on their arms and legs.  They had...oh my, they looked like Smurfs and Smurfette.  They had painted the table and had spilled the blue food coloring on the kitchen floor.  They had tracked it all around the room.  How could they have done all this in five minutes?!  They had developed the ability to stop time like Hiro in Heroes.  Sigh.

It was bath time.  At least this time, they had left Gabriela out of it.  Of course, she was with me, so they didn't have the opportunity to make her the second Smurfette.  They rubbed and scrubbed and it actually came off much easier than I had anticipated.

I used my trusty Clorox wipes and cleaned off the table and the chairs; I mopped the kitchen floor with my Swiffer; I put all the affected dishes in the dishwasher, put the soap in it, and turned it on.  I put their clothes in the washer.  Amazingly enough, by time my dear beloved Richard got home, there were only traces of the afternoon's antics.  Their bodies were nicely scrubbed clean, and they all wore clean clothes; there were no traces of Smurfdom on them, and only small stains on the linoleum that were easily cleaned off later with the Magic Eraser (I've come to depend mightily on that product over the last few years).

Some days this week have started out sunny, with clear skies, only to darken suddenly.  Rain has come down in sheets only to stop a few minutes later.  After an hour, the sun has been so effective, there has been no evidence the storm was even there, except that the plants have all been watered and the dirt and grime has been washed away.

Isn't that just like life?  Everything is going beautifully and then a storm hits.  Everything we touch seems to be turned disastrous and looks insurmountably stained.  We feel it and see it surrounding us and are only aware of the bleakness.  And the darkness comes.  But then, in the middle of all the gray clouds, when we're not watching, things change.  It suddenly doesn't look so bad.  This gigantic problem?  Hardly noticeable.  It's like a cleansing stream washes it all away and there is a new beginning.  Same person, different clothes.  Different perspective.  The sun is shining, the plants are growing, and the skies are blue once again.