notes on friday

• The 9-year-old boy did not die.  That was misinformation, thankfully.  I will update the previous post in case anyone ever googles it - don't want to be spreading rumors like THAT around.
  
  
• Up:  Have you seen it?  You have absolutely nothing better to do this weekend than go see this movie.  It was the best movie I've seen in the theater since the first time I ever saw The Little Mermaid for a dollar when I was 14.  So. Very. Good.  The animation is beautiful, the characters are HYSTERICAL, and the overall theme is good - will you continue to carry your house on your back, or lay it aside to defend the vulnerable among you?  What a great question for children to consider.  I'm not one to gush over movies (or to see them, truth be told), but Up was fantastic.  
  
  
• It has been an odd week.  As you've already heard, Brian's week has required a cape and super powers (there's a good question - what would Brian's super power be?  The bargain-finding hero, that's an option.  The supernatural ability to get toddlers to cooperate by combining silliness and authority - certainly a need for that one in the world.  Maybe it would be his mad grilling skills.  Or his ability to keep the books of an entire business in his head - TO THE PENNY - for years at a time.  Or his ability to name every meal he's eaten in every restaurant he's visited in every city he's been to EVER.  But would that really be a marketable super power?), which mean I've been manning the ship alone all week.  That's not exactly true - the kids have spent a lot of time with grandparents this week, but any time I've been with them, it's been without another adult present.  It's left me muttering to the tomatoes and talking too long to the grocery store cashiers.  I was getting twitchy and insufferable, even to myself, with all of these WORDS banging around and no one to say them to, until after dinner tonight, when I got to spend two hours talking while Brian nodded and we walked around outside.  Now I am better - appropriately decompressed and a little less weird. For the moment.
  
  
• Here's the truth: I see pregnant bellies, and for just a second wish mine was, too.  But I walked into the maternity shop tonight, looking for something for my sister, and was nothing but relieved not to need to shop there this summer.  And the sight of tiny babies (no lie) makes my chest constrict with anxiety.  Clearly I don't mean what I'm saying in that moment.  But that little wish - that forgets all of the pain and stress of pregnancy and all of the chaos of having a newborn and young baby - is God's hook, his guarantee that we will continue to procreate. Some day.

With that, I'm off to bed. Good night all.