Oh, Christmas Tree

I came home tonight to find that my in-laws got us the cutest little Christmas tree I've ever seen. Very short, round -- a real tree. I hung the lights, Sam put on candy canes (they all ended up in the same spot, where he could reach). For some reason, that is my absolute favorite part of Christmas, before all the ornaments go on, and it's just the lights. It's so evocative of childhood to me. I don't know why.

I'm not a big planner for the holidays. If it were left to me, I probably would forget to decorate. But it sure was nice to see that tree.

The Amazing Diplomat

A conversation with my 4-year-old today went something like this:

Sam: Mom, this rubby ducky is so amazing.
Me: I think you're amazing
Sam: No, you're amazing.
Me: No, you're amazing.
Sam: No, you.
Me: You.
Sam: Let's all be amazing.

Good idea.

Thank God for shirts

I’m thankful for my son and his simple honest prayers, like this one he prayed with Kevin a few days ago:

"Dear God, please help us. Amen."

And this one over dinner the other night, after I started saying thanks for the food, and he interrupted with, “Don’t say Amen!” (which means he has more things he wants to say to God, because in his mind “Amen” is equivalent to “the end”). So he prayed this to finish our prayer:

“Thank you, God, for our house … and for Mommy’s food and Sam’s food and for… our eyes and noses and … for our shirts.”

Yes, indeed, thank God for shirts. I am thankful for those, too. They keep us covered up and decent and warm, like friends who take me in with radical acceptance, my brilliance as well as my bad jokes included. For their willingness to cover up my plainness, my goose bumps, and my indecencies – to give me another chance to be whole through their eyes, and ultimately whole indeed – I give thanks.

For trust, for peace, for release, for laughter – I give thanks.

I am thankful for an elastic understanding of permanence which frees me from desperate anxiety. For a resolve that I don’t need to make anything happen, because it has all already happened, and for an awareness that always is not counted in minutes but in moments – I give thanks.

Thank you, God, for our shirts. Please help us. Amen.

Relentless

"Evil itself may be relentless, I will grant you that, but love is relentless, too. Friendship is a relentless force. Family is a relentless force. Faith is a relentless force. The human spirit is relentless, and the human heart outlasts--and can defeat--even the most relentless force of all, which is time."

(From last paragraph of Relentless by Dean Koontz)

Who needs tv?

Who needs toys when you have a sock? Or a flashlight?

My son spent at least a half hour tonight flinging a sock up in the air, running forward (arms flailing) and attempting to catch it while it was moving in opposite direction, all the while singing some rap-type thing about "I win I win yeah yeah yeah." That was after the birthday party he threw for me (no, it's not my birthday, but he wanted it to be, so it was), complete with flashlight. Don't ask me the connection between birthday and flashlight, but we had fun making shadow puppets on the ceiling. Before he went to bed, he played "hide the sock on Mommy" several times, a game in which he very cleverly placed sock in sneaky (but strangely obvious) locations and I had to "find" it.

Who needs tv when you have a 4-year-old boy?

Careful...

This morning as I was helping Sam get ready for the day, he was saying something very quietly with a somewhat mischievous look on his face. I had to lean in very close to hear him whisper, "Be careful, Mom, I love you."

To all you fathers out there, Happy Fathers Day! And be careful. They really do love you.

Starry Starry Night

Tonight, when we got home from a fun Friday night family date, Kevin pointed up to the sky and said to Sam, "God put the stars in the sky for you, son."

After a thought-filled pause, Sam replied, "Did He use a ladder?"