Astonish and Admonish

I'm supposed to make up my bed with the clean sheets, but it's nearly 6:00 and I haven't gotten round to it. Don't lie on those! I admonish my son who has flung himself over the billows. I meant that word: billows. Decidedly not pillows. I am lying on the pillows reading a book, and he is bothering me.

I take a photo of myself while waiting for my son to finish up his sax lesson. I want to figure out what, exactly, it is that I feel, and I wonder if I might capture it in the self-portrait. Sophie is in the backseat of the car, a tendril of hair caught in the last of the snot that has been dripping out of her nose. She is getting over a virus before which and during which she had no seizures. I am astonished by this yet admonish myself for self-absorption, for not climbing back there to wipe her face. I am tired.

I read nothing in that photo, use no filter, dare myself to put it up here. (Tell me what to do). Admonish me.

Astonish and admonish. I am reading a wonderful novel called Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead. I don't often use the word astonish, and I often use the word admonish. In fact, there's little in my life right now that would astonish, and certainly as a mother I too much admonish. Or maybe it should be the other way round: There is much to astonish and not enough to admonish.

Admonish me.
Astonish me.