my husband is fifty or so days out from his auto stem cell transplant.  now that his white blood counts have risen and he feels better and he is getting some energy and strength back – well, I have been living in this little blissful bubble.  he can play with the babies and even watch them long enough for me to get a shower.  we got a free secondhand (thirdhand) exercise bike and I can cycle for thirty minutes while the kids play in the living room and maybe I’ll start to lose some of the baby weight I haven’t managed to budge yet.  the baby goes down for a nap at eleven or twelve and I even have an hour or two to write and clean and cook, while he sleeps and the little girl watches a movie.

we have family hugs, where we each hold a baby and squeeze each other as hard as we can.  we have been playing family hide-and-seek games.  we wake up and spend all day with each other and we don’t even have to go anywhere, except maybe to pick up a grocery store order.  we cook dinners together.  we watch countless disney movies.  we are all together, all day long.  it’s all I ever want.

the little girl starts gymnastics in two weeks.  we bought a new couch, turquoise blue, and it is so, so soft.  our old couch was the best sleeping couch but scratchy and so stained – it was a free couch that my husband got off freecycle in college.  we’ve gone to family events, like my father-in-law’s fifth heart transplant anniversary.  we’ve gone to the lake house and even on a boat ride.

we’re almost like real people.

I don’t ever want to leave this bubble.

the little girl says, when she’s so tired: “I can’t walk! My legs are bending!”

the baby boy has so many words.  water.  truck.  book.  milk.  more.  snack.  mama, dadda, nana, pop.  cat, dog, bear.  we counted them all and it was over twenty.  he can point out his head, mouth, ears, hands, tummy, belly button.   still hasn’t found his nose.  he is completely obsessed with brooms.  he has discovered a board book about trucks that we have to read about forty times a day.  he screams with happiness when the garbage truck picks up our trash.  this week he learned how to bypass the childproof locks on the cabinets where I keep cleaners and I caught him squirting windex in his mouth.

the little girl loves to watch the movie ponyo.  she says she wants to be a white flamingo for halloween.  she found a new show that she loves, team umizoomi, and she answers all the math questions and we are always surprised at how much she knows.  she has used the potty twice this week!! we’ve taken a long and slow route to potty training: you can’t make this girl do anything she doesn’t  want to do.  she hasn’t decided yet that she wants to be potty trained.

we went to my cousin’s baby’s gender reveal party.  I took the kids to play at the playground at chick-fil-a.  I’ve been so happy.  it is the best thing in the world, watching him play with the kids.  seeing him sound and act with all his old energy and humor.

I want to live in this bubble forever.