Benched!

On her way out the door with the rest of my family, Molly marched into my bedroom and handed me her stuffed horse. "You're in charwge here, but we're all yea-ving so I brawt you him to be in charwge of till we get back, okay? When we get back, you give him back." And with those instructions, serving to identify exactly which one of us was actually in charge, Molly joined the rest of the gang in the car and I was left on my own, here at home, in bed, alone...with a stuffed horse and a cold.

I've been blissfully (but for the cold) in bed for most of the day, listening to life continue right along with me not at its center, but rather at the edge, on the other side of a closed door. Molly's been hanging about with her dad and the older three children have been working on their lessons. I hear feet thumping up and down stairs, history timelines being recited aloud from creation to World War II and beyond, a computer math lecture posing questions in the dining room, giggles and a spat or two, a squeal here and there, and possibly a wrestling match.

This concert of sound is interrupted once or twice when a tentative knock on the door is followed by a puzzled face and a whispered question. Whispered I suspect, because they've been given orders not to disturb, but it is urgent and do they really have to draw the earth's layers and am I quite certain that the word project really has more than three meanings and therefore three different synonyms?

Otherwise, I was on today's sidelines and cushy sidelines they've been...reading a spy novel I've not had time to enjoy until now, watching a marathon of my favorite TV show, snoozing under a heavy comforter on what has turned out to be a strangely cold day for late April, and eating my favorite cornbread made by Cole and Meg as they prepared dinner for later this evening.

I'll be playing first-string again tomorrow, getting back to real life as the perscription my Man picked up for me first thing this morning takes effect. There's a softball uniform to be laundered, spelling sentences to be dictated, things to be baked, and stories to be read.

Today, however, I'm benched. Me and this here horse...