Sweetness

Today's post is cross-listed with my Thirty Days blog, where my focus for November has been on finding the sweetness in life.

I need look no further than my son. 

This kid, I tell ya.  He's a charmer.

I've been ill the past few days and Jack has been all about the advice-giving.  Upon my emergence from bed yesterday morning,  Jack informed me, "You know mom, sometime when I am sick I just sleep a little and I feel better.  Maybe you can sleep for a while?  Do you feel better?"  He was all snuggles, all day and so understanding when I wasn't much good for playing in the evening.

Of course, part of that may have been that I let him watch TV practically nonstop.

Kid loves TV.


Ivy girl is pretty delicious herself these days.  I feel like she just gets better and better, this one. She's talking more and more, saying things like "Star" and "heart" and "blue", though somewhat indiscriminately.  And she's both fastidious and considerate, as demonstrated by this moment, from earlier this evening:

Ivy always insists that she wants tomatoes.  She never actually does, of course, and this evening the half a cherry tomato I gave to her ended up on the floor.  After dinner, we were sitting on the floor together when she discovered said cherry-tomato-half.  She brought it over to me and with almost scientific precision, proceeded to pinch it and squeeze its contents directly onto my skirt.  She immediately got her most concerned face on, pointed to my skirt, and said, "uh oh!"  I reassured her that it was fine, that we'd get something to clean it up.

She promptly left the room.

She went into the kitchen and opened the junk drawer (which is, by the way, above her head), pulling out a pencil and considering it for a moment before tossing it aside and pulling out-- a wad of elastic.  (no, I do not know why there was a wad of elastic in the junk drawer.  Do I have to know?  I mean, its a junk drawer...)  She trots back out, right to me, and oh-so-carefully places the wad of elastic onto the splotch of tomato goo on my skirt.  Jack, ever the helper, dashes over to rub it around vigorously.  By this time I was laughing too hard to talk, much less stop him.  The final straw?  When Ivy pointed out, with dismay, the one, singular tomato seed left behind.  God forbid there be one tomato seed out of place.  Poor girl.  It may be a long childhood for her, growing up in our not-so-clean house....

So a tiny taste of what it's like to live with Ivy Jane.  Multiply that story by, like, 10,000 and you might get the idea.