Headless action figures and a Moment Peace

A moment of peace. They still actually exist. Unbelievable.
I have been rather reclusive lately. I don't think I have gone anywhere since last Monday when I went to buy milk. It never really occurs to me that when I stay home so do the 4 youngest. Today Joey(the quiet one) brought me his shoes and pointed at the front door. I got the hint. As soon as big brother came home to watch the 3 others, who were sleeping, Joey and I went for a walk. He slipped his half sticky hand into mine and we walked. We first made a stop at the mailbox and then continued around the block. The breeze was perfectly crisp and the sun warmed the cool spots. It was nice to feel the sun. Usually the heat here is overpowering, more like walking into an oven where you can't really tell where the heat source is. Not today, today was nice. It reminded me of home.
So we walked. Hand in hand in silence. Just looking at things. Occasionally Joey would slow down to look at a neighbor or a car, but he never stopped or got distracted. The only real sound was the pat, pat ,pat of his little size fives hitting the sidewalk. We both understood that we were there to walk. We walked really slowly, his legs are still short, and it was so nice because we weren't in a hurry to get anywhere. I wasn't distracted by trying to teach him anything, no words for now, no this is this and that is that. It was quiet and probably the most peaceful I have felt in years. I believe fully that he enjoyed the silence as much as I did.
We stopped back at the house and checked to see if it was time for Sariah and Gabe's bus to arrive. We had fifteen minutes. So we decided to walk to their bus stop and wait. So once again hand in semi-sticky hand we walked slowly and silently to the bus stop. It wasn't quite as peaceful this time. There were more people this way, but it was still nice. We went to the wooden park bench and I sat, half expecting Joey to demand that we continue walking or climbing around on the bench or big rock next to us. But he didn't. That little boy climbed up on the bench next to me and sat... silently. He watched the cars go by. I watched him watching the cars go by. When there wasn't a car he would look up in the sky and occasionally point and say "B." "Yes, Joey, that's a bird," I would reply. Then he would smile at me and go back to watching the cars. And that's what we did...until the school bus showed up. Then it was loud and chaotic and Sariah and Gabe got off the bus. Life was back to normal.
I learned some thing about my almost 2 year old son, he has a peaceful soul. He can throw down with the best of them, but he has a spot of peace inside. There was something so soothing about being with him today. It was like being with a little peaceful part of myself that I miss placed a while back. I needed that. He's going to be the comforter in our family, I think.
After we got home, Joey was playing around, and I noticed he had something in his mouth. So I asked if he would give it to me, as if. If they go through the trouble of putting it in their mouth they aren't gonna give it up that easy. Taking something out of a child's mouth is like trying to take something shiny from a barracuda,(I'll explain that one in a minute.) So I pried his teeth apart expecting to find a magnetic(I know they're dangerous...anti-MoftheYaward...but it's funny when you use another magnet to suck the metal balls out of a somebody's mouth, mainly to avoid finger damage, it's like a vacuum) BUT it wasn't a magnetic. It took me a little off guard when out of Joey's mouth popped Spiderman's head. That was odd.
OK the barracuda thing ... Jason works on an oil rig in the middle of the Gulf. For this job everybody wears hunter safety orange with shiny reflectors all over their uniforms. Now they tell these people that are living and working about 50 to 80 feet above the ocean surface that if they survive a fall off the rig that they better keep their steel toed boots on to fight off the barracudas because they like shiny things. Shiny things like the shiny reflectors all over their clothes. That's funny.

Good day to ya.