Pajamas and Trees

I got a good dose of child-like wonder last night. It was nothing huge - just Lauran taking in satiny pajama bottoms for the first time. It was the way she did it. She used each and every sense available to her in order to study and marvel at such a wonder as satiny pants. She touched them and then delighted in the new slippery texture, rubbing her little hands up and down the legs and then flapping her hands back and forth across her thighs feeling the satin on her palms as well as the back of her hands, squealing with laughter the whole time. So wide-eyed. So innocent. It made me laugh as well, but even more so it made me think. When was the last time I really took the time to thoroughly enjoy and take pleasure in anything? I couldn't remember, so this morning this sun was shining on a small fir tree and it was stunningly green, so rather than rushing off I took a minute to enjoy it's simple beauty. And you know what? I can still see it when I close my eyes because I took the time to really appreciate it. The new challenge is to try to focus on identifying and taking in the wonders around me instead of the fire in my lungs when I run tomorrow morning.

Up, Up, Up and Away

Jacob has asked several times over the past week if we could throw everything out of our house. The only thing I could come up with was that he was trying to tell me we needed to clean, but it truly was not that bad, so he must have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I finally figured it out this morning when he asked again, I asked him why and he said "To make the house empty". We have been watching the Disney Pixar film "Up" a LOT lately. I asked him if he wanted the house empty so it would float if we tied balloons to it. He said yes and explained that in "Up" "Mr. Fredrickslin"'s house floats when he throws all of his things out of it. Adorable, right? I have to admit, I did pause and struggle with whether or not to crush the innocent childhood disillusionment of my blue eyed toe-head with the chubby baby paws. I then had a flash of him throwing things out of his bedroom window and realized that it had to be done. It took quite a bit of convincing, but I'm pretty sure I have successfully saved our belongings from certain shattering. I think I'll still keep watch for a growing balloon stash though.

Little but Mighty

Mondays are my late nights at work. Some Mondays I get home after the kids are in bed. Last night was one of those nights. While I am truly okay with my work schedule, I also have the obligatory mother's guilt about it, so when Lauran started crying last night when she woke up and realized I was home, of course I went up to give her a hug & kiss, yada yada yada, Lauran somehow ended up in our bed. It is amazing how someone so small can take up most of a king sized bed! At various points her head was on top of mine, I had tiny feet in my back, got elbowed in the face, and her feet were on her pillow instead of her head. At one point we looked like an "H", with Bill & I being the verticals and Lauran the horizontal! Throughout all of it though, it never occurred to me to pick her up and put her back in her crib. Because each time I was woken up I opened my eyes and saw this button nosed, chubby cheeked, absolute angel sleeping next to me, and there was no place else I wanted her to be besides snuggled up next to me.

Sunday or Sundae?

At bedtime each night, the kids and I sing a Jim Gill song "May There Always Be Sunshine". There is a melody and you can pick anything you want to finish the line "May There Always Be..........". Tonight we were singing and Jacob sang "May there always be babies. May there always be Buzz Lightyear. May there always be Woody. May there always be Sundays". So Bill and I look at each other with that "Awwwwww. How did we get such a sweet boy" look, both believing that he was talking about SunDAY, family dinner, spending time together, etc. Then Jacob says "With ice cream and sprinkles". Yep - that makes way more sense.

Dumb like a fox!

This is a photo I took today of an actual license plate on a business vehicle in front of me at a stop light. I personally don't think that this needs any explanation, but for those of you whose minds are not as warped as mine (I blame 11 years of counseling sexual deviants and teaching adolescent boys about healthy human sexuality), my twisted little brain automatically went to "Herpes Simplex 2". How bad would it suck to be the company employee that has to drive around in the car with "Simplex 2" on the license plate? Simplex 1 would be just as bad. I think if I owned the company I would just skip the "1" and "2" plates altogether and start at "3". How good can having an STD on your license plate be for business? Although, it's got me talking and spreading their name around now doesn't it?

Love my Yang!

Today I'm in my office with my Yang (I'm Yin) and somehow our mutual weight gain and copy machines come up in the same conversation. So what do you think comes to mind? Copying low fat, low calorie recipes? Xeroxing blank food journal pages? Nope. Not us. We both wondered if the true sign that you're obese could be when you can no longer photocopy your backside because your butt is now bigger than the copier window. Nothing is sweeter than having a friend who normalizes your crazy random thoughts by having the same ones at the same time.

F@#CK$%S

It's not what you think...and it is. Today's funny is brought to us by Lauran (2 years, 4 mos) - She has discovered a freckle on her right knee and likes to point it out each time she sees it. Problem is that when she says "Freckle", it sounds like another "F" word. This takes me back to when Jacob was about the same age and struggled with the word "truck". Having Jacob say "dumptruck" was a particularly funny party trick for quite some time. My kids attempts to grasp English pronunciation should provide comic relief for years to come. And when they outgrow this stage, I'll just ask my dad to say "ambulance"...;)

What does that mean?

Funny is a state of mind. What does that mean? For me, it means I am choosing to find and enjoy the humor in my life. With two young children (ages 4 and 2), a subtley funny husband, and a rowdy family of origin, there is plenty of material. And with a job in social services, sometimes being able to laugh at myself is the only thing that prevents me from becoming a client! My theory is that by creating a blog, I will be forced to find humor about at least one thing each day, hopefully assisting in maintaining my questionable-at-times sanity and saving myself the expense of therapy. I can then set that money aside for my children's therapists, whom they will invariably need after I'm finished with them!

Please feel free to post your own humorous encounters in response - maybe we can all keep each other smiling and occasionally laughing hard enough to pull a muscle!