Just after filling three bowls with oatmeal - none quite the same with all the specially requested combinations of fruit, syrup, and cream - I step outside and away from the pre-breakfast, three-kid flurry - still in my pajamas. Walking barefoot in the wet morning grass with a mug of tea balanced precariously in my hand alongside an empty mason jar and kitchen scissors, I gather flowers from around the yard. When it's full, I slowly walk inside and place it and all its randomly colored beauty in the center of the already-messy, and waiting to be cleaned up table full of empty bowls. And so a summer day begins.