Spells

I never put my boots on, not once. The army, smaller in numbers, but just as determined arrived in dribbles in my backyard. Time to build the castle. I smiled a little bigger each time I heard a door slam. And watched as these fellows, working 14 in a row, 6 in a row, lumbered out , yawning, but ready to work yet again. Two had to lean back in, reach far into their backseats, and unbuckle the very thing that made them who they are today. That made them go from boys, hell on wheels, to men….standing in the driveway, building a home for a stranger…..

Their daughters. First borns. And four year olds.

So on this Saturday, instead of digging trenches, dragging scraps, fetching nuts, and bolts, and beer…..I got to play….the girls and I. We went to hippie daycare….And I learned that my daughter ( 20 almost 40) is so silly when she mutters “Ma, you’re not eighteen anymore!” (afraid I’m going to slip, fall, get into trouble) because I know now, I’m forever four…..

We water colored and palm painted and ate potato chips with lettuce. We made up cheers to keep the troops going… “Go~Go, Daddy, Daddy, Sis Boom~Boom, Bah, Yeah……!” Jumping in Mick Jagger circles for the tah-dah! We rolled on top of the exercise ball, making giant blue somersaults in the grass….and of course, thunked a head or two on the down slide!

In the heat of the day (Nap time at hippie day care) they piled onto the hammock, balancing in the middle, toe to toe. And this is what I heard….

“You awe a good witch awen’t you?”
“Cowse she is”
“She’s going to spwinkle magic dust on us and we a goin to fall asweep fowevah”
“And a handsome pwince is gonna wide ovah here on his white howse and wake us up”

And so I did, of course…..

Abbra Kadabared them to sleep, with the wave of a right hand filled with golden glitters, left hand rocking the hammock into slumber land…..

Nap time at hippie daycare lasted exactly four minutes, the spell broken by a handsome dad whiling by on his way to the sawhorses …..
Then four flailing legs and four silly arms scrambling later,
Two little princesses tumbled off the magic carpet and onto the cool green grass….. “Yuah tuwn, yuah tuwn” they pleaded, guiding me onto the hammock.

And they whooed me to sleep with sweaty little handfulls of pink and gold glitter, blobbed on and rubbed in like neon beach sand. “In yuah haya” “pwetty wittle pwincess”….

And then they stood back and watched….

“we haff to wait on the pwince”
“what if she sweeps fowevah?”
“well he’ll come an wake huh up with a wovely kiss”

And they waited.
And I waited.
And finally, in cahoots, they ran and fetched the green baby doll and snuggled her up to my neck and “Hooway, hooway, yoah filled wit love now!”

From the deck,
The handsome prince~dad smiled,
“They forgot to come and get me”…….