Yesterday afternoon, Tiny Dancer helped me make the hummus for our afternoon snack. Certain children thought it was a little too spicy (I’m a garlic fan), so I scooped out some peanut butter, too. Now, I can’t explain why the concept of grabbing a carrot stick from a skinny end and dipping it into a mound of peanut butter eludes my Lil Prince. It’s just that it does. He has to hold the carrot by its side and get as much peanut butter on the carrot (and his fingers and sleeve) as he possibly can. Come to think of it, that’s exactly what I do with my McDonald’s nuggets and hot mustard sauce.
Hmmm. Well, because I hadn’t thought of that yesterday, I kinda snapped a bit.
“Lil Prince! Get up right now and wash your hands. Don’t come back till you’re clean.”
And he did. He returned with still moist but very clean hands. And because I have that mom ESP, I got a little pit in my stomach (a very little pit, probably from a plum). “Lil Prince, is there peanut butter on my bathroom towel?”
“Yes!” he answered pretty proudly. “I didn’t want to get the soap all dirty!”
I later told this story to Papa Bear as the best one-liner of the day. He answered that it actually did makes some sense to him.
Later in the evening, I was standing at the same bathroom sink (cause we only have one), staring at a dirty towel, when I’m pretty darn sure God said, “Objects in your rear view mirror are larger (not closer, larger) than they appear.”
I looked in the mirror and muttered, “That doesn’t really make sense to me.”
And then He said, “It’s not for you.”
Oh, so I’m posting it here. Just in case it might be for you.
That’s normal, right?!
Speaking of my rear view mirror, though, Papa Bear used to buy me cards for special occasions (and no occasion at all) and not write a darn thing in them. This bugged me. And I told him so. It took me four years to realize that he had been spending quite a bit of time in front of large selections of cards before picking just the right one to bring home. It already said what he wanted it to say. When I realized that, I got out all my old cards (the ones I had saved), I reread them, and I cried.
Well, this Valentine’s Day I repeated my mistake. Yeah, I’m good at that. We went to a marriage conference for our Valentine to each other, and I wasn’t expecting anything else from him. So, when he exited the church with one of the Valentine’s decorations (a huge Valentine’s Day card that he’d asked the pastor for), I giggled, “You can’t give me a reused card!”
It was three days before I opened it and read it.
I texted him at work, “Did you read that card that you gave me?”
“Yep, that’s why I asked for it.”
“Oh….crap. Well, thank you and I’m sorry and I love it!”
And he replied so deeply, “LOL.”
But when he got home, he grabbed the card and he asked for a pen. He signed his name and included the date. “Keep this in good shape,” he said. “I’m going to sign it and date it every year.
And even though he bought me the coolest ever peacock earrings and two locally made necklaces for my real present.
I think I might prefer the card.
