Butterflies and fairy houses

Today I let go. I had plans to make a corn and black bean salad for tomorrow so it could marinate overnight in the fridge. I had plans to wash my sheets, that job being highly overdue. I had plans to take bags of stuff to Goodwill from my summer closet clean out. I definitely had plans to take my kids to see the July 3rd fireworks in our town. But it was so sunny when we woke up today, an I-can't-tell-you-how-rare occurrence this year in the Pacific Northwest, that the girls and I decided to go out in the yard in our pajamas and rain boots and do a little morning exploring. Under some dead leaves I decided to clean up we found a spotted grey slug and two tiny garter snakes (my insides still recoil at the thought). We filled seven mason jars of various sizes with flowers of all colors. We picked only red, white, and blue flowers and floated them in a great glass bowl for our table. We followed a monarch butterfly around the yard and gave up hope on taking her picture until I decided to cut some more hydrangeas for a jar and there she was, tiger striped with flecks of iridescent blue on her wings, right next to me on a vibrant blue blossom. We used some dead chestnut tree branches to make a fairy house like I used to do on the Oregon beach when I was little, except instead of shells we used leaves for rugs, and flower petals scattered for a roof and carpet, and a tiny stone-lined path, with a final giant stone upon which came to be written in Sharpie marker in six-year-old handwriting, "Welcome fairies." Then it began to pour on us, so we came in and had baths, put on fake tattoos from a birthday party favor bag, and I painted their nails however they wanted. This meant that Charlie had red and blue fingernails with silver glitter and red glitter toenails, but Abby, the four year old, had purple and pink fingernails with gold glitter, one foot of pink toenails, and one foot of purple toenails, each with gold glitter. At some point their sheets were washed, but not mine. Their dinner was made, but not my salad. We didn't make it to the fireworks, because our nails were drying and it was cold and wet outside. But they giggled about the fairy house all afternoon, and they oohed and aahed over each other's nails, and at some point each little daughter wrapped her not-so-small-anymore arms around my neck and kissed me, and told me she loved me. Wow. I am no supermom. I often can be heard saying, "not right now," "just a minute," and "I'll get that for you after I finish this." But today I was just there, in the moment and accommodating, giving out a cheerful "Sure" to their requests, and I will never forget it. And now one last to-do for today: I still have some glitter that has to appear inside that fairy house before morning, and I can't wait to see their faces when they see it.