Laughter in the house tonight

K.K. spends Friday nights in the house, usually at least.She has Friday night and Saturday morning dance classes and it's just better for everybody for her to sleep closer to the studio - saves driving time and allows more sleep, and gets us to the Farmer's Market early when we drop her off - a good deal all around. Tonight when Ruth and Liam and I came home from synagogue it felt especially tender to come in to her sweetness. She is reading her way rapidly and obsessively through the Twilight books , and it was so cool to share that excitement with her, Ruth and me both. Learning to read was hard for K.K. and though she mastered it a few years back we weren't clear whether she would ever be a READER, living for hte moment to get back into a story. Clearly, she has become a READER, and I love that. But there is something else I love, more pertinent to the purpose of this blog and hard to put into words. The more of us who spend more time in this house (it could be any house) in an everyday, ordinary kind of way, just living together not visiting or doing anything special, the more connected we feel. I think one of the advantages of co-housing for me is more naturally occurring interactions with people I love, more organic interactions. This is especially true with Liam. He knows me as part of his every day life, knows me enough to happily hold my finger in synagogue. I know just how he likes to play dropsy and that his favorite dropsy toy is his new, darling, multicolored doll E.B.There is the kind of familiarity that makes it feel special to be part of a family. The challenge is to have as much of that as possible with family not living in the house or staying often overnight. I want the house to be a hub for all of us, so the Friday night involvement of K.K. is especially neat. Joanna has been in and out some this week and I had time with her doing errands and helping her pack to move -very rich time. I want to involve the little boys and Andrea and Tracy more, and I think that will come with time and choices. There is such a special intimacy that comes from sharing the dailiness. I want as many of us as possible to have as much of it as we want.