blessings

Love Thursday: I love my family

I was sad to read that this will be the last week that the Love Thursday site will be functioning. It’s been such a nice place to find happy and uplifting stories. I’m going to try to keep up with my lists, though, because I think it’s helped me to be more positive.

April 25

  • Poppy’s beautiful smile.
  • Pretending to be elephants, complete with the requisite “ba-roomph, ba-roomph” sounds when crawling around the house.
  • Dancing to the happy beach song on “Sesame Street.”
  • Putting a sock on Marsha’s head.
  • Bean nachoes!

    • April 26

  • Poppy’s wonderful hugs.
  • Rockford revealing that Garth Algar is his “dance inspiration.” It shows, honey.
  • Poppy clapping and saying “Yay Cubbies!”

    • April 27

  • The lady with the scary monkey and sunglasses-wearing dog at the antiques show.
  • Ben & Jerry’s Cinnamon Bun Ice Cream.
  • Taking an afternoon nap with Marsha curled up on my lap.
  • Watching “Extras” with Rockford.
  • Rockford trying to toss a Tums into my mouth, the Tums hitting my tooth with a big “clunk” and Rockford laughing so hard he tooted.

    • May 7

  • Poppy saying “peachy keen!” when I gave her a cup of peach yogurt.
  • Rockford seeing that I’d searched for “I can has a cheeseburger.” And then being entirely unamused by the site.
  • Thinking about the duck that flew down Dad’s chimney and got stuck behind the fireplace screen. (That happened years ago, but it still makes me laugh.)

    • May 8

  • Cheerwine float.
  • Poppy looking at Marsha and saying, “My precious! I see precious!”
  • A good storm.

    May 11

  • Rockford bringing home cupcakes.
  • Steak night!
  • Rockford putting on fresh black socks for bed.

    • May 12

  • Poppy putting on her most serious face to dance to “Old MacDonald.”
  • Meeting Don and Carrie for dinner. And the waiter bringing me a kids meal and then, after Rockford very carefully considered his bread choice, saying, “It’s like you’re choosing a wine.”
  • Poppy laying back on my arms to “relax” and saying “ahhhh” in the bathtub.

    • May 15

  • The “Gilmore Girls” series finale. I’m still so sad that it’s over, but the last episode was lovely.
  • Me: “What does a mommy say?”
    Poppy: “I love you!”
  • My little brother being so excited after his band concert.

    • May 22

  • Going to the park with Poppy.
  • Playing hats with Poppy.
  • Poppy resting in my lap before bed while we go over our whole day together.
  • The season finale of “Lost.” I can’t wait to see where they’re going with this!
    • Reading

    The Whale

    I finally finished “Moby Dick.” It was more interesting than I’d expected it to be. Even the parts about fossilized whales. It reminded me of Bubba’s shrimping speech in “Forrest Gump.” Herman Melville knew everything there was to know about the whalin’ business. And he wanted everyone to know it, by golly.

    Flotsam / Jetsam

    Why we rarely go to the playground

    There were two little boys, probably 5 or 6 years old, playing Lord of the Slide at the park this afternoon. They had perched themselves at the top of the slide, and they wouldn’t budge, thus rendering the slide inoperable. But that’s not the point.

    When Poppy and I walked by the slide on our way in, one of the boys shouted, “Hey! I seen you before! You was here yesterday!” He was wrong, and not just grammatically, so I said, “That must have been someone else. We weren’t here yesterday.”

    Later, when Poppy was waiting patiently for a turn at the slide, another, smaller boy wandered over. The Lord of the Slide looked at the boy, then looked at me and asked, “Does they has a name?”

    And so I handed him a copy of “The Elements of Style” and the schedule for the nearest Toastmasters meeting, and we left.

    Not really.

    I told him I was sure the little boy had a name, and that he should ask the little boy. Then I asked him to move so Poppy could slide. He did, but only after his mother yelled at him from the trail outside the playground, where she had taken the boy’s sister to pee behind a tree.

    Really.