Late Winter Surroundings

Naomi was out of school yesterday. She slept in. Lingered in her pajamas. While McKibbin and I trudged off to work she attended an all-day Detective Camp at the Lincoln Children’s Museum. Spent the day wrestling with encrypted codes, taking fingerprints, becoming a master of disguise and solving mysteries. She was luminous as I gathered her up in my arms at the close of the day. An excited, and epic, description of her day spilled out of her mouth and carried us all the way home.

Pulling into the driveway, I sized up the misty cold outside. The dimming sky. And I asked if she had plans for our evening? School was out the following day too which afforded a little more slack than our regular evening routine. I kind of cringed as I asked the question. Her day had, obviously, been so exciting I thought the evening could only be a let-down.

Nevertheless I asked. She stared out the car window and suggested we flannel-up and read books all night in bed. We walked through the front door at, maybe 5:30, and within minutes the plan was put into action. McKibbin arrived home around 7pm.

He found us under the bed covers, reading out loud and improved the scene with hot leftovers. Rolled up on the side of the tray was his Harper’s Magazine. He joined us for a little bit. Silently leafing through the pages of an article. Reading out loud isn’t particularly McKibbin’s thing. Naturally he’ll read Naomi bedtime stories but written words are compartmentalized in his brain separate from the sound of a person’s voice.

The draw to join us must have been the moment much more than the agenda. Hot food. Soft pillows. Naomi's dramatic reading from the pages of her latest chapter book. The cats purred and fixed us in their sleepy gaze.

And I snapped a mental picture. One I hope to keep close to me always.
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Quote of My Day: “This fog is getting old--like the iceberg in my driveway.” (email from R. Munson)