Some Small Thrills

I know - two posts in one day (go ahead, read the other one, too!), during the busiest week of my recent memory. It's kinda strange how that happens. Maybe I am learning to stop and smell the proverbial roses after all. So of course, I just have to share four things that have thrilled/fascinated me in the last couple days:

1. This little beauty just made me rethink my mental block on breastfeeding and made me have hope that the comfortable, portable, inexpensive maternal bonding bliss that comes so naturally to everyone except me might actually happen. At least I will be covered while trying yet again to make a go of it, which is sometimes half the battle. I think I really must get one. And I really must tip my hat to the woman who developed the idea. Brilliant, really. And funny: "hooter hiders." You just have to love it.

2. I am learning a lot from magazines at the doctor's office these days. Today I discovered a little blurb on interesting ways to learn/see the letters of the alphabet. This naturalist discovered letters and numbers in the patterns on butterfly wings and without harming the creatures, managed some phenomenal photos of every letter of the alphabet and the numbers 0-9. Check it out here. BRowse the gallery and all. Honestly, it's truly fascinating and beautiful. Who knew?

3. When you live with a man like my husband and have a serious thinking son like Calvin, at one point or another you will catch at least a piece of some animal show on TV. And you will learn something you never knew. The other night Calvin and Dad were soaking in some info about "flowingos." The thing that I found fascinating? That flamingos are pink because they eat shrimp - whatever it is that makes shrimp go pink when you cook them is the same thing that makes flamingos' feathers pink because they subsist almost entirely on shrimp. Is that not cool? It does make me wonder what hue I would be if my color represented the mainstays of my diet. But we'll try not to think too much about that.

4. Finally, my favorite awe-inspiring thought of late. Calvin shared it as I was tucking him in bed tonight: "Mom...you know?...At the bottom of outer space...is...more outer space..." Perhaps even more wonderful than that thought is the little boy who can come up with such a thing, out of the blue. And that he likes to tell me about it.

I'm just thrilled with people who think up things that make life easier, people who have learned to see things in nature and share it with everyone else, the marvels and diversity of God's creations, and the immensity of being the mother of my boys.

Super-silly-us-ness

When I was little, my mom had a few "Silly Sally" stories that she would tell every now and then. They are a tiny bit like Amelia Bedelia, only much shorter, and of an oral tradition rather than in any storybook. They all ended with someone in the story being a bit alarmed about a situation, and the phrase, "But Silly Sally just laughed and laughed. She knew..."

Um, the only one of these little tales I remember is about Sally and her friend coming across a large cow patty that smelled atrociously and had a big spider sitting on the top of it. Sally's friend ran screaming away, both because of the spider and the smell. "But Silly Sally just laaaaughed and laaaaughed. She knew that spider couldn't have made all that poo!"

Yeah, it's a masterpiece, I know. Too bad I can't remember any others. Of course, their punchlines and subject matter are not any more deep than that.

The thing about it, is that my mom couldn't get more than a wry smile out of me when she told these. Although to this day, I do smile inside when I hear or think the cadence in the words, "But Silly Sally just laaaaughed and laaaaughed...She knew..."

I've just always been kind-of a serious soul. Maybe with a little bit of high-brow humor. Or perhaps a humor that just has to be tickled at just the right time and just the right place. Because I have belly-laughed a time or two in my life, and maybe even had liquid come out of my nose over something funny. But I'm definitely not a ROFL type.

Mostly I take things seriously, if not literally. I pride myself on pragmatism and I often catch people's off-the-cuff jokes a little too late - like just after I answer quite seriously or defensively, when I should have just kept it light and fluffy.

Calvin is my child in that respect. He was born with a knitted brow - which Auntie S dubbed his "thinkie" look. And he thinks a lot. And while he does have fun and takes interest in many things, he is literal and serious and approaches play like it's his job. He likes his information and his conversation to be straight-up, undiluted correctness. No nonsense.

He never really liked when I would call his brown eyes purple just so he would correct me, and he doesn't like when we change the words to nursery rhymes or songs he knows. He rolls his eyes and groans when we tell him outlandish things or - heaven forbid - make up answers to questions that don't hold water. He doesn't laugh at the silliness. He hollers in frustration that we aren't getting it right. And I totally understand where he is coming from.

Enter Henry. The kid loves to giggle. He thinks nothing is funnier than when I say, "This little pig went to the beach, this little pig ate hot dogs and macaroni," or tell him that I love his polka-dotted hair.

His latest joke is to insert the word "applesauce" in place of any noun in any sentence: Last night he fell off my lap laughing during prayers because instead of saying, "We thank thee for the beautiful sunshine," he ad-libbed and said, "Thankee for de bootifoh apposauce."

"Mom, I need you to change my apposauce," he'll say with a cackle and a chortle at the end. "Calvin, you're a baby apposauce," nyuknyuknyuk. (Yeah, Calvin loves those comments.) Ask Henry to get in the tub, or pick up his toys and it's, "You pick up your applesauce!" with a big sassy hahahahahaha.

Who knew that applesauce could garner such delight in the mind of a young comedian? Or help his mom live - and let go of herself - a little? I'm learning to laugh along. And to do more silly things with him. It's really quite refreshing. Even Calvin gets in on it now, and can even provide Henry with a punchline, if he can't muster the silliness himself.

I'm learning that even if I don't "get" the humor in any of it, allowing myself to giggle with him instead of demanding serious focus on getting shoes on so we can go already, actually helps me get the spontaneous delight of childhood silliness that I think I never really allowed myself before, even as a child.

Maybe the Silly Sally stories are coming full circle. I'd like to hope that my boys will remember fondly: Our Mommy just laaaaughed and laaaughed...She knew that there is nothing better than a contagious, rolling, gurgling, belly laugh from a bright-eyed, silly 2 1/2-year-old.

Today's Little Joys

This is the face of Little MIU (Man In Utero). I think the little hand saluting is mui cute.

At the sonogram, the technician said MIU was breach right then. Nothing alarming - but that would explain the feeling that something large was invading my trachea and rib cage. Like a head and shoulders, the biggest parts of a baby, even if he is only three pounds right now.

And then a little like magic, I noticed the next day (come to think of it - after a riotous night of wiggling and jiggling inside) that my belly button was not as tight as it was before, that my belly didn't feel like it was in my throat, and when I was laying down, it was VERY obvious that Little MIU was now laying sideways - I have NEVER seen something so clearly from the outside like that before! It was seriously like going from a largish volleyball shape up high to a serious spare tire shape lower down...very cool.

Besides being really awestruck at how it looked, can I even express the relief I feel from the EXTREME heartburn that I have experienced for the last two months - nearly four months earlier than it has happened in the past? It's gone, just because Little Man decided to rearrange himself a little bit.

I've never experienced "lightening", because I went overdue and was induced before the baby was down either time, and even though this is not that, it is a truly lovely thing. Maybe I will now be more tolerant of later heartburn, when MIU can't help but set my esophagus on fire because really, what is a ten-pounder to do in such tight quarters?

And for a couple other little joys, Calvin and Henry have contributed these little sweetnesses recently:

Me: Henry, I guess since Dad is going to paint, that leaves me to the job of changing your poops.
Henry: No! Dad do it! (This is a highly unusual request - it's usually the opposite)
Dad: No, Mom will. I'm going to paint.
Henry: NO! DAD. IS. The changer. (He growled the last word and punched his little fist into his other hand, like he was granting supreme power...)
Me: (sweet smile) You heard him.


Cal: Can I just not put my shoes on?
Me: Weeelllll....(it was a 70 degree spring day)
Cal: It's just been sooooo long since I felt the ground with my feet.