Rainforest

October 19, 2011 By Kelle

The sky was a purplish gray tonight–the quiet after the two-day storm, the calm before the cold front.

It’s rained steadily for two days. Lightly fallen into a constant backdrop of white noise, wet windshields and drips that tap the surface of our pool with an encore of water rings that grow and slowly disappear.

We ate bagels and sipped coffee this morning with the accompaniment of the Weather Channel which brought like-minded stories from the flooded streets of Key West to waves that crashed over guard rails along Lake Shore Drive.

It felt a very good place to be last night while thunder pounded and rain poured–secured under the weight of a cold sheet, a cable-knit blanket and a down comforter, and sidled next to Lainey’s little body, Brett’s long and strong one and the sight of a little chest rising and falling in the crib next to us. (ahem, Thursday morning addendum: After waking up to several “LOL, long and strong” texts from friends, let’s just take Brett out of this sentence.)

Brett swears the middle-of-the-night thunder put a crack in our hallway ceiling, but then again, it was so powerful and startling that we woke up looking for a good story to tell.

The story is that our woods are a swamp that begged for exploration today.

In eight years, we’ve seen nothing more in these woods than a few lizards and some patches of poison ivy we’ve avoided, but we are always on the look-out for worse. I can’t believe I never ventured out here until I had kids though. It is a fascinating place, welcoming much imagination.

Lainey thought it was the greatest thing in the world–to trudge through shin-high depths and pretend we were in grave danger from a looming storm. “Run! Hide in here! It’s coming! It’s coming!” she warned me, all breathless. And I pretended I was scared of the great big storm and followed along, shimmying my body against trees and cowering under hanging moss.

We made it to our safe spot, the imaginary bobcat did not steal our “food” and I answered to my fake name of “Stenta” (she is creative with her fake names).

Thank you, Daddy for the pics. It was his idea, in the first place, to turn the woods into a playground.

*****

I found our local Asian food mart yesterday, walked in and wondered how in the world I had ever gone so long without it. We fell in love with a local restaurant’s Tom Kha soup, and I had to recreate it. So I headed to Asian Pok for lemongrass, ginger and some good red curry paste but ended up falling in love with so much more–the Chinese lanterns that decorated the ceilings, buckets of vegetables I’ve never seen, racks of kimonos and shelves of delicate tea cups. I came home with lemongrass, ginger and some good red curry paste as well as the exact same little lacquer bowls my grandma used to have, an origami bird for Lainey and a tin of loose leaf Jasmine tea.

And Tom Kha soup? Turned out delicious and is now one of our favorites. I’ll share recipe once I perfect a few things. The lemongrass was a little crunchy.

*****

Giveway winners for $50 gift certificate, courtesy of Chantelle Nicole Designs:

Comment #228: vermonter–Love the new header. I have to say that it is such an awesome idea to have leaves sent to you if you are not able to go to them. There is nothing like the fresh smell of leaves or the fresh air with fall in it.

Comment #437: Life with Kaishon–I love when parents listen to their kids.
If they don’t like a sport…why force them?

Congratulations to both of you! Please e-mail me your contact info to kellehamptonblog@comcast.net with GIVEAWAY WINNER in the subject line, and you can start shopping at Chantelle Nicole Designs.

*****

This moment just killed me tonight.