“Perfect”

Today I came home early to pick up Meera and bring her to her 2-Year-Old-Well-Baby-Check-Up. When I arrived the boys were running around the driveway, wearing their perfect summer outfits: nothing but bathing suits. Margie had Meera dressed up for her doctor’s appointment in an adorable white sun dress with white sandals, her hair in a high ponytail on top of her head. She looked precious. She couldn’t wait to jump in the car and get to go off somewhere with just me. She didn’t care one bit that it was just an excursion to see the doctor. Dr. Alex checked her all out and Meera charmed her socks off the entire time. Grins and giggles and batting-of-the-eyes. No kidding. Little Miss is a charmer, and she’s in the 75th percentile for height and the 55th percentile for weight. And she’s 100% healthy in every way. When she got an immunization shot in her arm Meera didn’t even shed a tear. As Dr. Alex gave our brave baby girl her lollipop, she told me, quite seriously, “Heather, she’s perfect!” It sounded bizarre to me. (who in their right mind refers to anyone-or-thing as ‘perfect’?) But she meant it. And I know it. In all of her little quirky cutey eccentric strong-minded unique totally-imperfect ways our baby girl is PERFECT. And so was the sight of our garage (perfect!) as I arrived home with sticky, lollipop-coated Meera blabbering away in her car seat in the back seat. The minute I could I grabbed the camera to take a picture of our garage floor before anything could happen to change even one square inch of it’s perfect mess. All I could think was, “this is summer.” When Meera saw it, she said, “uh oh!” pointing wildly to the mess. Margie said, “I know! What a mess!” And I said, “Yes! the perfect mess! this is how it should be in the garage in summer!” And Margie chuckled in agreement and then flew out the driveway — leaving early for the day — to rush off to a concert her husband had bought them tickets for. Soon after that the bambinos were in their glory, eating Oreos and watching their favorite weekly summer show: the lawn guys mowing our yard. I swear, it never gets old for them. And now Meera’s right there with the boys in the front row — she gets practically as excited for the “mowing!!!” as K & O do. I don’t get it. I really don’t. But for them, it is perfect. After leftovers for dinner — an all-you-can-eat-buffet of microwaved tupperware containing all sorts of random stuff from the past few days set out in the middle of the table — we went to OWowCow for ice cream. Blueberry Lemon and Blood Orange Raspberry in a cup for Kyle. Strawberry in a cone for Meera. A milkshake with Chocolate Chip for Owen. Caramel Cashew for Braydon, and Coconut Almond Chip for Heather. There could not possibly be a more perfect ice cream — especially on a summer night, with it dripping and dribbly all over chins and knees and covering the front of one white sun dress. Even the sandals had to be sponged clean when we got home. And who knows how much dirt was ingested (Meera, for one, dropped her cone on the ground three times). And now the three are sleeping soundly. The bath water is filthy these nights from three grungy summery kids. But with sweet-smelling wet hair and fans blowing and night lights glowing, they fall asleep with no shirts on between clean sheets. There will probably be a laundry load of bed linens to be washed in the morning (with their deep, deep, deep down summer tired we’re stripping the boys’ bed, on average, about every-other-night these days— at least one of them wetting the bed that often), but we don’t even really care. Because really– it is all just perfect. The grime, the sweat, the tears. It is all alright. In this little family of ours we have three healthy, happy kids with two more-than-fully-fulfilled parents. And it is summer. It doesn’t get much better than that. Perfect?– In a very imperfect-kind-of-way?—-Yes. Yes it is.