Crafting Form

I’m sitting down to breakfast again in my house. I sip on my coffee as one of my diners tells me that when its summer here people in Australia are dinking hot cocoa. The other is saying “gobble, gobble” while flapping her arms. She then transitions to barking and meowing. Now she says “I robot” as she stands up from the table. She walks over to me starts smacking me on the arm saying “Robot attack. Robot attack.” The other diner has left the table and he is making car noises in the family room. The robot is now whispering to me and saying “shhh” with her finger over her lips as she goes to “attack” the one making car noises. The one making car noises notices the gestures and does a proactive attack of his own coming up yelling “Robot Atttaccckkkk!!” This scares the original robot who screams and comes and buries her head in my lap and then immediately lifts it up and says “shhh” with her finger over her mouth again. She runs towards her brother, little feet pounding the hardwood floors as her pants fall down. Everyone erupts into laughter. Such is breakfast with two kids on the weekend. One demanded cold oatmeal. The other pancakes. We landed on a frozen waffle with pancakes for one and just pancakes for the other. The only quiet is when their mouths are full but even that isn’t a guarantee of silence. The six year old boy chitters and chatters telling me about alligators and asking me “do fish sleep?” and “where’s your other coffee mug?” and “what’s a terrorist?” The two year-old girl chimes in with commentary. “Alligator chomp!” After breakfast the two-year old helps me empty the dishwasher. I’ve delegated the silverware unloading to her. She as a typical gen-z has her work accommodation demands. “Big ladder! Big ladder!” I get the two step step stool for her to stand on so she can reach the silverware drawer. She starts pulling out spoons and forks and then comes to a table spoon. “Where go? Dad!” I turn from unloading the dishes. “Dad! Where go?” She waves the tablespoon in front of me. It doesn’t match the regular spoons. I show her that it goes on the side. “Yay!” She shouts as she puts it away. Joy and pride in her work radiates from her small little face. She comes to a mixing spoon. She climbs down from the step stool and walks over to the counter where the mixing spoons, ladles, spatulas and other cooking utensils are. She waves the blue spoon in front of her saying “Dad! Up!” I walk over and lift her up. She doesn’t just want to put it into the container she wants to stand on the counter. I set her down and she puts it away. A little light glows in her eyes. She looks at me and smiles. Then patters her little feet on the counter as she moves to give me a hug. I lift her down. She points. “Bowls.” I take down her bowls and she has me open the old drawer that scrapes as it grinds in the wooden enclosure – no fancy gliding wheels in this 96 year old house. She looks at me as if I’m her whole world. Those honeysuckle eyes flash with light erupting with love and pull my heart into them with an ethereal force. There’s so much joy in them; untethered unabashed free joy. She smiles a huge face splitting smile and buries her head in my lap. She looks back up flashing a grin and then buries her head again now playing some silly game that has her belly laughing. Her small body shakes like a rattle with the laughter. She can hardly draw a breath. “Daddy! Daddy! Where go?” She buries her face again. To be a child. To be so free with such joy in our eyes and laughter on our lips. All over the simplest of things.