Dandyflowers & Dandyflowers - Laura's Diaries

The house was unusually quiet as I passed the sun porch’s doorway on my way to check on Michael and Laura.  Four year old twins and the word quiet are something that go together about as well as oil and water unless that is they are sleeping or doing something they shouldn’t be doing.  As I walked to the kid’s rooms I remembered reading somewhere that if you have children, hear the cat yowl, the toilet flush and the words, “Oh oh!”, it’s already too late.  Fortunately, I knew the twins were napping so Simon, the stray Himalayan who had shown up on our doorstep, was safe for another afternoon.

Double L, the nickname Dad gave Little Laura the first time he held her, had fallen asleep across her bed.  Her hair felt downy soft as I brushed a stray golden lock from her forehead.  It was in these quiet times that I fell in love with her and her brother all over again.  I gently kissed her cheek then got up and quietly slipped across the hallway to check on her brother.

Michael, like his sister, was deeply into his nap.  He had his arm wrapped tightly around his favorite stuffed animal, a monkey.  Jack’s mother had given each of them a stuffed animal for Christmas; Michael got the monkey and Laura got an elephant.  Neither of them went very far without their snuggle friend.  I kissed Michael’s cheek then headed to the sun porch.

The porch was warm; the mid afternoon sun was streaming in from the west and the plants that lived there were basking in its light.  I eased into the large, round rattan papa-san chair that I had bought for next to nothing at a garage sale and took a few minutes to gaze out into the early spring afternoon.  The trees had budded out early and their leaves, although tiny, fluttered in the light afternoon breeze.  A robin hopped and bobbed around the yard pecking at the ground in an attempt to find something to eat.  Michael would have undoubtedly called the bird his “Spring Robin” after the book of the same name.  Jack had read “The Spring Robin” to Michael and Laura, since then every time Michael saw one of the ruby breasted birds he squealed with delight because the bird from the book was in his yard.

The robin flew away and I picked up the book that was lying on the matching rattan table next to the chair.  It was a book I had read dozens of times since the twins had been born, but it was one I couldn’t put down.  I opened it to the page that had been bookmarked and began re-reading the handwritten passages.

__________

“August 27, 1962

Dear Diary,

Today I met the nicest boy by accident.  I hit him in the head with my locker door, oops!  His name is Jerry Collins.  I think we’re going to be friends! 

Laura”

__________

The hope, the simple hope that was infused into that handwritten passage that so captured Dad and Laura’s inauspicious meeting made me smile.  However, I was saddened all the same knowing what the final outcome was going to be.  I flipped through the diary as I had so many times since Dad gave them to me, reading the thoughts, hopes and aspirations of the girl of his dreams and the holder of his heart until Michael’s little voice brought me back to the present.

“Momma?”  Michael said sleepily from the doorway.                            

I looked at him and smiled.  “Hi Mikey, did you have a good nap?” 

“Uh-huh.”  He rubbed his eyes then yawned.  “It was a good sleep.”

“Come here honey.”  Michael and the ever present Mr. Monkey crossed the porch and crawled up into my lap.  “How’s my little man?”

“I not little Momma, I a big boy!”  He said emphatically in his sleepy yet clear four year old voice.

“Yes you are; you are my big little man.”  I kissed him on the side of his head.  His hair was damp with sweat.  He, his sister and his father all sweated every time their eyes closed or so it seemed.

“Momma, I big!”  He reiterated with added insistence, but his head never left my shoulder.

“Okay, okay you’re my big boy.”  I wrapped him in my arms and kissed his soft little cheek.  He giggled.

“I big too.”  Laura said matter-of-factly from the sun porch’s doorway; her Ele-phan-ant, as she called her snuggle friend, hanging limply from her right hand.  I motioned for her to join Michael on my lap.  After she had situated herself across from her brother it wasn’t long at all before all three of us were laughing and giggling as we took turns making up stories about Mr. Monkey and Ele-phan-ant

__________

Jack got home around six just as the kids and I were sitting down to eat.  He had called to say he might be running late and not to hold supper for him.  “Hi family.”  He bellowed as he came through the door.

The twins greeted him with cacophony of “Daddy!”  They slid out of their booster seats and ran into the living room where he was hanging up his suit coat and putting away his brief case.  The twins made an immediate frontal assault on his shins.  I laughed when the three of them came into the kitchen; Laura was hanging tightly to Jack’s right knee and Michael to his left knee.  With each step, the children squealed with delight.

 

“Okay you two, turn loose of Daddy so we can eat.”  The kids released their willing prisoner and returned to the table.  Jack headed to the sink, washed his hands then made his way back to the table stopping long enough to give me a kiss.  The twins giggled then made kissy-face noises at each other.

“Okay monkeys,” Jack said from his place at the head of the table, “it’s time for a prayer then we can eat.” 

“I not a monkey Daddy, I a ele-phan-ant.”  Laura pronounced each syllable carefully and precisely.

Jack chuckled.  “How about this, ‘Okay critters it’s time for a prayer then we can eat.’”

The kids giggled then got quiet.  “Whose turn is it to say the prayer?”                                  

“Mikey’s turn.”  Laura said.                                                                                                        

“Alright,” Jack said, “Mikey will you say the prayer please?”

Michael put his elbows on the table, interlocked his fingers and rested his bowed head on them before he spoke.  “God is good, God is great…um…thank you God for the food on my plate.  Ameners!”  Jack began to cough in order to cover up his laughter at Michael’s prayer.  When he was able he thanked Michael then we all started filling our plates.

__________

 “I’ve got some good news Erin.”  Jack said after he had given the kids their baths and tucked them in their respective beds for the night.  The kids had played hard all day so getting them to go to sleep was not a hard thing to do even with their two hour naps.  They had nodded off while Jack read them their bedtime story in the living room.  We had to carry them to their bedrooms.

“Oh, what is it this time?”  I was always a little nervous when Jack said he had “good news”.  This was the man who considered a double yoked egg a stroke of luck and would go on about it for hours or so it seemed.  I felt my skepticism was well founded.

“No, really it is good news.” Jack said. “I’m not joking around Erin.” He put his arm around me and pulled me close.

“Uh-huh.”  I allowed myself to be pulled into his embrace.  Once I was comfortably snuggled next to him, I asked, “So what’s this good news.”

“Well the company is sending me to a conference in Chicago week after next.”  Jack said.

“Really, so the good news is I’ll be rid of you for a whole week?”  I playfully poked him in the ribs.

“Ha-ha Erin.”  Jack said.  “Just for that I won’t tell you that I get to take someone with me.”

“So who’s going with you?”  I paused then added. “It’s not Bernie is it?”

“No it’s not Bernie, thank goodness!  If he was going I think I’d pull out my hair.”

Laughing I said, “You wouldn’t look good bald.  So who is going with you?”

“You!”  He kissed my cheek for emphasis.

I sat up and faced him.  “Me, I thought you said this was a business trip?” 

“It is a business trip, a business trip that you get to go on.  If you want to go that is.”

“What will we do with the kids?  Marci is going on vacation and can’t watch them.”  I quickly ran down a mental list of who might be able to watch Laura and Michael.

Jack laughed.  “I called your dad from work today after Mr. Lewis told me.  He said he’d love to keep Laura and Michael for the week.”

“Did you really?”  Having my father watch the kids was something that had never entered my mind.

“Yes I really did.  Call him yourself if you don’t believe me.” Jack said smugly.

“I think I will.”  And I did.