Putting Things in Perspective

The kids love watching stop-animation Lego videos on YouTube. This is, of course, a supervised activity, because some of the stuff on there is highly inappropriate, even if it looks like it's for kids because they are done with Legos. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a large number of the "inappropriate" ones are posted by adolescent boys -- but I digress.

Last night, just after putting the kids to bed, I was heading downstairs with the laptop when I slipped on the second-to-bottom step and fell the rest of the way. The laptop was fine (it bounced off my hand), and, except for my pride, I was also okay. I guess my utter lack of grace is something else I don't have in common with Catwoman.

Anyway, Adam came running up. "Are you okay?"

Upstairs, Xavier cried, "Mommy!" and I heard the pitter-patter of little feet as he ran over to the top of the stairs. I looked up at his little worried face and thought about how much that little guy must love me.

"Mommy, is the laptop okay?" he asked, dispelling any confusion I may have had on that point.

Forest for the Trees

Today while Gwen and Xavier were playing outside, Gwen tore big hole in the back of her jeans. She was horrified, but I told her not to worry about it. She moaned, "But it's embarrassing!"

Well, it was about time to call it a day anyway, so I brought the kids in. Gwen said, "I can't wait to change my pants!"

I said, "Well, there really is no point, because you'll be taking a bath in a minute anyway."

I set Gwen to work on her science project, then squared Xav away in his bath. I came back to see how Gwen was doing to discover that she was wearing her shirt ... and nothing else.

"Um, Gwen," I asked, "Where are your pants?"

"I had to take them off, Mom," she replied. "It was too embarrassing to leave them on!"

I guess I have a different definition of "embarrassing" than she does.


This morning as I was getting up, Adam asked me if I knew where our comb is. Now, usually in the morning I don't turn on our bedroom light, I just rely on the bathroom light to get me where I need to go (my coworkers are probably thinking, "So that explains her fashion sense!") Anyway, I turned on the bedroom light this morning, and, sure enough, found the comb.

Then I went into the bathroom to get ready for work. Suddenly I heard a pitter-patter-pitter-patter-pitter-patter of bare feet running across the floor. I looked in the doorway of the bathroom, and there stood Xavier with his bear, his eyes squinched shut against the brightness.

"Mommy, are you in there?" he called, even though, if he opened his eyes, he could have seen that I was.

Running with his eyes closed ... thank goodness that it is going to be a long, long time before he can drive the car.