Simple

T-shirts. Flip flops. Not every day, but inching closer.

When it drops to 60 degrees and windy, the kids curl into their sweatshirts and ask me for gloves on the playground. We're more than ready for spring to give way to summer.

Haiti letters are out and on their way to students. There's a count down in the workroom marking the number of days left of school. We've started talking about camp, and the eighth graders are uncertainly clinging to their last few weeks of middle school.

We'll capture them three Sundays from now for their first taste of the high school youth group, and then they'll move up in June. It's a smaller class than last year, more watchful, less quick to engage. Different, like every class is different from the one before it. As if there is a collective refusal to mimic too closely.

And, it means that my sixth graders are moving up too. A few more weeks and they'll be displaced, no longer the babies who can get away with anything. Although, these kids have never done church the 'normal' way, so who knows what next year will hold.

They're growing older, but they're also becoming more sure of the fact that they belong here.

M*tt** allows me to comb my fingers through the snarls in the back of his shaggy hair, and, when J*yd*n questions it with a teasing, "What are you, his mother?" he simply shrugs and leans back into the touch, even as I ruffle J*yd*n's hair with my other hand. "The seat of his car messed with the back of his head." I explain, turning a little to watch M*t** and Ry*n in the octagon, and M*tt** nods. "The back of my hair is always messed up."

To his mind, it is simple.

We go outside for the game, and M*t** throws his shoulder into my back until I chase him, until we're both on the grass, both laughing, and he's ready to join back in.

Inside, J*yd*n is glued to my arm, so close that he's stepping on the edges of my shoes every time that he turns, stomping lightly on my toes during prayer.

The girls are on my left side as we sit, knee to knee, crammed in as close as they can get, dutifully working to lock me out my phone. Laughing and rolling their eyes as we jump around during music, only J*yd*n having followed closely enough to be standing with us.

*nn*'s hands are everywhere, her still forming sense of mimicry landing them in the boys' hair split seconds after mine, the unexpected action earning her their befuddled stares.

M*tt** drifts closer after a single song, letting me drape a heavy arm around his neck and pull him forwards. He shouts at all the quiet parts, craning his neck around to look at me, daring my hand to cover his mouth, to turn his head towards the screen, to just hold on until his twelve year old world stops spinning and he can remember that church is a place to feel safe.

M*dd** has her hands raised at the last song, and even my shouting one almost stills, always aware of when a moment is sacred.

They settle in for the lesson, and the rest of the boys make their way from the front, carving out barely enough space to sit, clustered together like a pack of puppies, asking questions and making comments and trying not to wiggle - because, quite honestly, they haven't left any of us the room to do so. 

I bribe them with donuts, just this once, and their eyes light up with memories. "We should all get together this summer," M*t** proclaims, "and have another donut fight!"

And, I am reminded that, just like the coming spring, this is a process. It's a messy, beautiful process. Never smooth. Never following a 'normal' set of rules. But, these are my kids, and we have rarely done normal. It is simply not in their natures, nor in mine.

So, we run and we chase and we hold on. We sit 'too close' together and everyone talks at once. We eat donuts and answer questions and tell stories. And, when *nn* interrupts the prayer at the end of breakout groups with, "Do you guys think I'm autistic?" the girls who have been with me since elementary school barely even blink.

This is our normal.

And, just like the weather, we'll enjoy what we have while it lasts.