A little while back, my parents purchased thirteen acres of land about two-and-a-half miles from our house. After months of house plan creating and all kinds of official meetings with house-building people, the building process is finally underway.

This month the foundation is being laid. Next month the house gets framed up. Also next month, my parents move in with us so they can help out with some of the work and supervise. (That’s also the month that we have three full weekends of play performances, our family travels to upstate NY once and my husband and I fly to NYC once. June is going to be a blurrrrrr.)

The wonderful thing about this whole arrangement is that:

1. My husband is working close to home.
2. My husband can go to work as early as he wants (because he doesn’t have to wait for any house residents to wake up and clear out) which means he can come home sooner.
3. The 13 acres are wooded and my kids love to play there.
4. The kids can play on the aforementioned 13 wooded acres while my husband works and I run errands (or sleep).
5. The older kids are old enough to actually go over there and work.
6. The older kids can bike to the property all by themselves.

This week Ted came with his backhoe and moved lots of dirt. The kids thought it was awesome. (And when a hydraulic hose broke and started spraying oil all over the place, the kids thought it was even more awesome.)

Also, you can’t tell by the pictures, but it is LOUD up in them there woods. And not because of the heavy equipment, either. It’s loud because of the cicadas. The whole woods is a-buzz with their whiny whirring. It’s enough to give a person a headache. (My husband thought there was a car alarm going off for the first two hours he was there.)
 

Seven years ago when the cicadas last made their appearance, my little brother—the one who likes to pretend he’s a groundhog-eating caveman—harvested (collected? caught?) a bunch of the cicadas and fried them in a skillet with some butter. He served them with a choice of sauces: Ranch dressing, ketchup, and honey. My then three-year-old daughter was intrigued. My brother offered her one. She popped it in her mouth and ate it. We have it on video.

The older kids are doing actual work up there: helping to take measurements, bending and setting and cutting rebar, reinforcing the forms, and moving dirt. They get cuts and blisters, and, like a real construction workers, they bandage their wounds with electrical tape. They come home from the property filthy beyond measure.

This same time, years previous: baked brown rice, strawberry spinach salad, my favorite things,  cinnamon tea biscuits, rhubarb streusel muffins, caramel cake, pinterest, the boring blues, fowl-ness (a butchering tale)

My husband and I had a date night this past weekend. At first we just made plans to usher at the Blackfriars. But then we found overnight care for the kids at two different houses and decided to leave a little early so we could get a hamburger at Five Guys, yum.

‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore was the name of the play we were ushering. I had been warned it was a dark play (and that under no circumstances whatsoever should I take the kids to it). In fact, I had long ago decided I didn’t want to see it at all.

But then I got curious. It might be interesting to see how the actors pulled it off. I’d seen them do dramas and comedies, but a dark and bloody tragedy would be something new. Still, I was worried. Would it mess with my mind? Would our sweet date night be ruined?

I was surprised by my reaction. I liked the play! It wasn’t exactly fun to watch, but it was extremely well executed (no pun intended), and the sex and violence weren’t gratuitous. The play was ugly and raw, yes. But not raunchy. It probably helped that I was so caught up in the acting details—how the blood got on stage, how they comported themselves while being nearly naked, how they acted those hard scenes and still remained emotionally stable individuals (though I guess they could all be wacko and I’d be none the wiser).

The next morning, we slept in (to 6:30) (I am constitutionally unable to sleep in—it’s a curse). My husband told me the following story while I was still half-asleep. It made me laugh.

The previous day, he was at home with the kids while I was at rehearsals. He was tilling the garden and the kids were playing on the front porch. He went into the house to check on them and they weren’t anywhere around. He thought they had maybe taken the TV and were watching a movie upstairs (wouldn’t be the first time), so he went to check.

They were on the front porch roof. They had hauled out blankets, toys, books, and a radio, lathered up with sun screen, and were hanging out like a pack of college kids (minus the beer).

My husband went back downstairs and used his cell to call them on the house phone. Nickel came running down to answer it. He never saw his papa crouched down between the plants and the fridge. 

Papa: Hi. Where are you?

Nickel (walking around, looking for his papa): Playing downstairs.

Papa: Let me talk to your sister.

Nickel (running the phone upstairs) (loud whisper): It’s Dad. Tell him we’re downstairs. Trick Dad!

Daughter: Hi, Papa.

Papa: Where are you guys?

(Pause.)

I want you to think very, very carefully about what you say.

Daughter: (Pause.) On the roof?

We got dressed for church (no yelling at kids required) and readied the house for the noon meal. My husband suggested we hit the bagel shop for breakfast, so we did.

Two meals out and a play equaled one much-enjoyed date night. And, considering that I’ll be gone most evenings from 6 until 11 (give or take some minutes) for the next month, it was a smart, preemptive move, too.

This same time, years previous: garden tales, part one, garden tales, part two, talking points rained out