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.