12/31/12

Timeless Beauty

This morning, I couldn't find my jeans anywhere. I had just washed them the night before - so I assumed my husband had put them away in some logical location. I heard him down in the kitchen finishing up breakfast with our son, so I stuck my head over the top of the stairs and hollered down at him to see if he knew where they were.

My toddler heard me and ran to the bottom of the stairs to find me.

 "I'm up here, buddy," I called down to him.

 He looked up, cocked his head in a funny way, and said-asked, "Mama?"

When I confirmed that it was, in fact, me, he began to laugh hysterically.

I looked down at myself, at 32 weeks pregnant, clad only in my bra and underwear, and I started to laugh too.

Pregnancy is beautiful for many reasons, but I am not sure there is much that is more beautiful than seeing it through the eyes of someone with a good, honest sense of humor.

12/18/12

I Happy

My toddler's new favorite thing to say is:  "I happy."

When he wakes up, when he is going to sleep, when he has a bad dream and we rock for a few minutes, when he is eating grapes, when he is at a party with my co-workers, when he is in a bubble bath, when we sing his favorite song, when he is hugging the dog, when our whole family is together at the same time . . . these are all times he utters those precious words:  "I happy."

They always take me off guard.  Before he started saying the expression (and who knows where he picked it up), I can't remember the last time I heard anyone say, "I'm happy."

But I find it totally impossible, after he says those two sweet words, not to look back at him and say - regardless of the day, "I'm so glad you're happy.  I'm happy too."

"Happy too,"  he says back to me - in a way that is matter-of-fact but also disarmingly intimate, as if in confirmation of some pact that we formed, some password into the happiness club.  Then he goes about whatever he was doing or - better yet - smiles up at me and starts again:

"I happy."

"I'm happy too."

"Happy too," he will sigh.

And the more times we say it, the happier I am.