“You may not use silverware to clean your sneakers.”

Several years ago, before Little Brother was born, we received a beautiful handmade afghan as a gift. It was a joint effort by Gert and her daughter Patsy, who is herself the mother of one of our good friends. The afghan is exactly the same shade of blue as the pattern running through the living room couch, so we keep it there.

Many times daily, I pick up that afghan from where it lies in a heap someplace in the living room, carefully fold it, and put it back on the arm of the couch. It doesn’t stay there very long.

Early in the morning when I get up to start the coffee and my morning prayers, I curl up under that blanket with my prayer book.

Middle Sister is usually the next to get up, and by that time I’ve moved on to the kitchen to pack the lunches and watch the morning news on TV. Before she’ll think about breakfast, she snuggles under the blanket for a few minutes of warm and comfy waking up.

After Big Brother is dragged unwillingly from his bed, he too heads straight to the couch, where the blanket has been abandoned by Middle Sister in her rush to get dressed.

And his timing varies, but Little Brother often puts in some couch time with the blanket as well, when he’s still sleepy and I’m not sitting down to provide him with a lap.

It wasn’t too long after we received this afghan, that Gert passed away. Her granddaughter gave me Gert’s copy of the Secular Franciscan Rule at my Profession. Gert was an SFO also, and it meant a lot to me that her family wanted me to have Gert’s treasured book. No surprise there, though, since Gert and her family have always been generous with their love.

I think we feel a little bit of that every time we sit under our favorite blanket.

I was in the basement taking laundry out of the dryer when I heard this series of sounds:

The shower turned on.

The toilet in the other bathroom flushed.

Big Brother yelled, “Oh, no!”

Feet thudded up the stairs.

Big Brother yelled “Sorry!” before his sister even had a chance to shout, “WHO FLUSHED ME?”

And I smiled, because with all the bickering those two do, it was nice to have a reminder that underneath it all, there’s love there.

I have gotten so used to Little Brother tagging along with the Big Kids that I tried to register him for school next year without presenting any documents!

Middle Sister brought home her school registration forms on Friday. I filled out the form for bus transportation, wrote out the check, and wrote her name AND Little Brother’s name on the registration. I added a little sticky note to the secretary asking for another bus form, as the district requires one bus form per child.

I guess that because Little Brother has always been made welcome in the Big Kids’ schools, I just figured everyone knew he was coming.

BZZZZT! Wrong! Thank you for playing!

The secretary sent me the bus form along with a reminder that children registering for kindergarten must present their birth certificate, baptism certificate, and immunization records. You know, those important details.

I’ll bring them to the school today when I go to help in the lunchroom. I also have to bring Middle Sister’s gym clothes, because when she came downstairs dressed in those this morning, I pointed to the Catholic Schools Week calendar and showed here where it said “Thursday: All students wear gym clothes.” Today is Wednesday–so I made her change, despite her arguments that today is the day for the gym clothes. She got to school and the kids were all in gym clothes. (??????)

The people in the school office are probably convinced by now that I am a complete and total airhead. I’ll have to see if I can do anything else to confirm their opinion of me.