爱的小纸条

 

Love Notes

It's been over eleven years now. It was a wintry afternoon, the snow swirling around the cedar trees outside, forcing little icicles to form at the tips of the deep green foliage clinging to the branches.

11年前，那是一个寒冬的下午，窗外，大片的雪花绕着雪松盘旋飞舞，枝头深绿色的叶尖上挂着小小的冰柱。

My older son, Stephen, was at school, and Reed , my husband, at work .My three little ones were clustered around the kitchen counter, the tabletop piled high with crayons and markers.

我的大儿子史蒂芬去上学了，丈夫里德去上班了，三个小孩挤在厨柜旁，桌面上堆着蜡笔和记号笔。

Tom was perfecting a paper airplane, creating his own insignia with stars and dtripes,while Sam worked on a self-portrait, his chubby hands drawing first a head, then legs and arms sticking out where the body should have been.

汤姆正画着星条旗徽章，为纸飞机做漂亮的装饰。汤姆正忙着画自画像，他胖乎乎的小手先画了一个头，然后在应当画身体的位置画了腿和胳膊。

The children mostly concentrated on their work, Tom occasionally tutoring his younger brother on excatly how to make a plane that would fly the entire length of the room.

孩子们都全神贯注地忙着手上的活儿，汤姆不时地告诉弟弟怎样正确地制作一架能够穿行于整间屋子的飞机。

But Laura, our only daughter, sat quietly, engrossed in her project. Every once in a while she would ask how to spell the name of someone in our family, then painstakingly form the letters one by one.

我们唯一的女儿劳拉静静地坐在那里，聚精会神地忙着她的事。她偶尔也会问如何拼写我们家庭某成员的名字，然后极为困难地逐个字母拼写出来。

Next , she would add flowers with smaill green stems, complete with grass lining the bottom of the page.

接着，她画了一些有着嫩绿小茎的花朵，在纸张的底部添些草边。

She finished off each with a sun in the upper right hand corner,surrounded by an inch or two of blue sky. Holding them at eye level, she let out a long sigh of satisfaction.

每完成一页，她都会在右上角处画一片蓝天，中间是太阳。然后把它们举到眼前欣赏一番，心满意足地长舒一口气。

"What are you making, Honey?" I asked.

“宝贝，你干什么呢？”我问道。

She glanced at her brothers beofre looking back at me:

看我之前她瞥了一眼她的兄弟们。

"It's a surprise," she said, covering up her work with her hands.

“这是一个惊喜。”她双手捂住了作品。

Next , she taped the top two edges of each sheet of paper together trying her best to create a cylinder. When she had finished, she disappered up the stairs with her treasure.

接着，她把每张纸的上下两边粘贴起来，尽量做成一个圆筒。做好后，她带着那些宝贝跑上楼梯，消失不见了。