I am sitting on the grassy slope, keeping an eye on the kids and our bikes. Chas is lying on his back, arms wide, laughing at the twilight and the moon. Ford is networking with another stranger. They’re wild and free. I’m in a funk, but Damon encouraged this bike ride. And here we are, downtown, waiting for the bats. Emotional management.

A colossal thunderhead looms over downtown, rolling south. It’s insides churn with lightening. We pack up the kids and head back, weaving through pedestrians on the bridge. Half of them are holding camerafones to the sky. Passing them, we feel a headwind as the storm sucks up our warm air, wafting guano up from beneath the bridge: intense and murky, like cultured warm beef agarose.

Faster we pedal back, past the biggest pillowfight I’ve ever seen, diffusing with hoopla under police megafone. I want to be in it, to detox. I can’t clip through the shadows fast enough for all the angst. Instead, I whiz through the trees wondering whether my kids will grow up as moody as me. While some parents hope their children become pro basketball players, I hope my children become rational problem-solvers. Fortunately, I am married to one. The odds are even, I guess.

I watched you carefully this afternoon, at the lake, while your brother threw a fit about his ill-fitting swimsuit. You were so content to walk the length of the short sandy ledge, back and forth, cautiously. When my busy eyes returned to you, I found you pouting, somehow affected by something I missed, ready to cry, but so willful not to. My eyes flinched and I bit my lip, but you stood there facing the sun and let your feelings rest with a deep sigh and a frown to the ground. Even when I was on alert, a bear-sized yellow lab lumbered up and grabbed the football you found, right out of your hands. The nerve! You YELLED at him, and pointed to “MUH BALL!” When the dog walked away, you looked at me so desperately. I had to do the impossible, and explain to you that it wasn’t really your ball after all.

But then, I was fortunate that you are nineteen months old, you let your feelings go again, as I pulled you into the cold lake and encouraged you to splash. You upshifted to rowdy, and the raucous splashing started, drenching my shirt and sunglasses and soul with chilly wet abandon.

The other day, you were in the lake right here with the two boys. You were frustrated that they kept swimming to and from the diving platform without you. So I watched you meditate through your approach, but always kept two hands behind you: sure enough, you walked all the way out to the platform, until your little button nose went under water, just before the metal ladder. When I scooped you up, I saw fearlessness in your chattering, toothy smile. You are so courageous and unfettered in the water. As I laughed and nuzzled my face into your neck, I felt pride mixed with fear: I can’t leave you for a moment near water. You have dived into our bathtub, climbed into the kitchen sink, taken off towards the waterfall at the creek, traipsed along the edge of every fountain, submerged your own head (while lying face-down!) in the bathtub and stood in the rain and in the shower: completely in love with the feel of water around you. I’m so thankful we don’t have a swimming pool, but really, it takes less than two inches of water.

While you were getting ready for bed tonight, I handed you your football so I could attend to Ford. While I brushed and cleaned and put on pajamas, you threw the ball high into the air over your head, over and over again. It would disappear and you’d laugh like a robust Vince Vaughan, and it would fall five feet in front or behind you. Then you threw it up a foot or two in the air, and you caught it! And you caught it again. You did this like you’ve been doing it for months. Have you? When I applauded, your joy noticed the audience, and you joined me in clapping, laughing even louder. And afterwards, you picked the football back up and threw it high again, catching it on the return.

For every day that I’ve forgotten to read to you, or let your wet diaper pickle your bottom, I’ve been rewarded with these little hints of determination. It’s proof that there’s a lot of nature to match nurture. It’s amazing what you have managed to teach yourself while I’ve been preoccupied, and I’m happy so say that , at the very least, I haven’t been too preoccupied to notice.

love, ma

Mom, I want to play PBSkids.

No, it’s bedtime. And I’m writing.

Why are you writing?

Because I want to remember.

What do you want to remember?

I want to remember you, and all the little things you do.

I don’t do little things, I do BIG things. (frowning)

I just got a new battery for my Powerbook. Damon stood in line for service while Ford played a video game. I stood over Chas while he stood bouncing on one of the black ball-shaped seats at the kiddie table.

Friday morning we took a hike along the creek. We chased a young bullfrog, who teased us along a stretch of cattails at the bank before disappearing into some brown muck. Ford was so eager to catch him, standing there with his little plastic red bucket. Chas only wanted to shout and jump into the water. We had to retreat into the woods to keep everyone safe.

I stopped to inspect the mustang grapes, and Chas disappeared. I felt my heart in my thighs ten seconds later, when he reappeared uphill about thirty yards; he had found a loop and had come round to surprise us. Mind you, we were walking along a twenty-foot precipice that overlooked the creek.

Chas is a bushwhacker, both on and off the trail. We put him point blank, while Ford trailed behind, scouting for honeysuckle. He managed to find four blossoms, and gingerly dissect them for the four drops of nectar among them.

On saturday, we biked along the lake. Though the landscape is vibrant and the wildflowers are in bloom, people were the life force along the lake, running, canoeing, parading, strolling. Winding through the trees, we trailered the boys and their havoc, like a small zoo train with a cage of crackhead chimpanzees. I wore a constant smile; for one thing, I wasn’t the one hauling the trailer, and for another: it really does sound cute. Despite the mayhem, I like robust, vibrant kids and my kids are anything but reserved.

Some jocks were playing kayak polo under the MoPac bridge, the ball barely clearing the beams beneath me as we rode over them. A Pug meetup and show along the waterfront, one was wearing a pink tutu. A birthday party for a resident goose. The swallows are back. Wisteria and Chinaberry blossoms made the air heady and seductive. I am in love with Austin.

Dinner with friends Saturday night at a neighborhood dig, margherita pizza under the oaks with good wine while the kids scrambled on the lawn and playground. A two-man blues band played in an alcove on the patio. Sunday morning completely disoriented me. The blazing heat, with the loss of an hour, drove me straight into summer. Jogging through our barely-rural neighborhood, grasshoppers zirred past me across the blacktop. The only thing to ground me in April was the fresh, green terrain, littered with half dollar-sized white flowers; everyone’s yard looked like a driving range. Wooly bear caterpillars marched across the road, and a brown tarantula stood paralyzed as I passed it on the curb.