On Calm

If boys aren’t playing video games or eating, they’re up in your face. Hashtag not all boys.  Fine.  But I’m always trying to dream up quiet, sedentary, non-screen activities that my sons will do independently.  A way for us to be around each other, but not actively engage.  Or speak.  Maybe that sounds awful.  But winter is long.  And my apartment is small.  On a rare occasion I’ll catch us accidentally settling into a peaceful vision:  my youngest drawing, eldest reading and me doing a puzzle.  It feels like a scene from a Renaissance painting.  Why can’t this be our life?  I’ll wonder.  And it lasts about as long as it takes me to ask.