Marching

March felt like what it's name implies. It wasn't a stroll. It wasn't a sprint. It was a steady, even-paced march through the numbered boxes on the calendar.

While Nick has spent the past five weeks toiling away in the skies over obscure-sounding places whose names start with multiple consonants, the children and I have maintained a steady cadence at home.

We rode our bikes to school, picnicked at neighborhood playgrounds, ordered new books and nurtured new friendships.



My mom visited and it was wonderful.

With her we went to the shore and touched anemones and hermit crabs. We walked over the tops of white-capped waves on a beachfront pier and squealed with each foaming crash.

We soaked up spring sunshine in the backyard and did a lot of reading.



There were the usual Tuesdays packed with tumble classes, Mondays in Liliana's classroom and Wednesdays at the nature center or the zoo.

The baby finally learned to walk.



Calvin learned how to read the word "zoo" and started soccer class.



Liliana kept a running list of all of these accomplishments so she wouldn't forget to tell her Papa about a single one of them upon his return.



There were no surprise eviction notices or trips to the emergency room.

March was benign as far as crises go, but it didn't pass without a lot of hard work and some failures, too.

During the past five weeks, I mowed the lawn three times, sometimes with a clingy toddler strapped to my back.

I processed approximately 35 loads of laundry and filled the bath tub with bubbly water and naked children approximately 35 times, often against the will of a filthy, exhausted and very surly 3-year-old.

I prepared 30 wholesome dinners and a handful of not-so-wholesome ones.

I doctored six bleeding wounds (each of them on the body of the same 3-year-old mentioned earlier) and removed four splinters (the biggest one from the palm of my adventurous 3-year-old).

I wrote a dozen blog posts and felt guilty about another dozen I didn't have time or energy to get to.

I only broke down under the strain of single parenthood once, which led to a well-timed break from my lenten sacrifice of sweets. I ate four chocolate chip cookies and felt much better. Failure and forgiveness never tasted so good.

March wasn't perfect but it was good. It was full of regular work and play, but empty of the special encouragement, love and hard-working hands of a Papa and a husband.

Today it's April -- a fresh new month. The days are longer and the sky is clearer.

It's time to pick up the pace a bit and break into some skipping.

April requires a different style of movement all-together. Mostly because Papa comes home tomorrow.