Accolades from a 5 3/4 year old

Upon finding the Black Spiderman suit (on his bed): (sung fortissimo) "You're the best Mom / in the whole wide world/ including Chinese / and all the States / That's how great my mom is/ You're the best!/ (spoken) Thank you, Mom."

Really. Who gets praise like that in any regular workplace job? Love that kid.

P&Q

Sometimes there is joy in the stillness. I don't get to experience stillness or silence very frequently: there's always some buzz of motion; present, impending or just zoomed past. But today, at the beach, just me camping with Josh and Sean, there have been moments of purely blissful peace & quiet.

Josh fell asleep in his mini-swing. After the tinkling electronic merry tunes shut off, the only sound was the rhythmic tempo as the mini-motor leveraged itself against his almost 17 lbs of sleeping chub. The unusual compounding of this and Sean's unscheduled nap in the blanket fort made for a noticeable quiet. I smiled to myself as my thoughts came creeping out, coaxed by their natural curiosity.

I remembered Things in the quiet. Things I wanted to do: write, take some great pictures of the kids, resolve my ongoing eBay dispute, promote recycling. Not a Have To Do list, just some Want To Do's that needed P&Q to see sunlight.

The day went on; the kids woke up and crying, laughing, whining, singing, giggling ensued. but it's quiet again now in the nighttime, and I'm thinking how much I enjoy the daily noise with just a dash of P&Q thrown in.