Just last night I stumbled upon a Pie Chart about bath-time via Honest Toddler. There are things about the very small kid days I do not miss, like certain struggles during tubby time. The cute little wriggly soft bodies, sure, I miss those in some theoretical way.
Thankfully, I make sure to have toddlers in my midst pretty much at all times.
But I miss me, too, the one who could focus upon giving a bath with my full attention, mind, heart and soul. I remember how sweet and important it felt to be fully present for that task, and so many others like it.
Like all the people tell you during those early days, months and even years, the days may be long but the years go by quickly. Time is just a wily entity. It’s not that I feel wiser or that I loved every minute of those days, those long days. It’s not even that maxim about small kids, small problems and big ones, big problems. It’s how even when the tasks were simple, like wipe a face or bottom eighteen zillion times a day, I could feel accomplished and mystified at once. New parenthood is like that. You kind of believe you can figure it out. Only eventually, do you realize it doesn’t work that way whatsoever. By then, though, you’re totally in love. Thankfully.
Anyway, Josh Stearns and Erica Carlson captured how absorbing the exhaustion of those early days, months and years can be in a parody of “Royals” and now, thanks to the magic of the Internet, someone made the parody into a video. You must watch. It’ll bring you right back if you’re not there now.
So, that’s one to share.
When my friend (from real life long ago) Lisa Jahn-Clough posted a photo of her new early reader (created with her husband, Ed Briant), I was determined to get a copy. At a local bookstore, I found Petal and Poppy and the Penguin. Promptly, it’s a hit with my kindergartner, who figured out which was which, through the placement of images within two critical ‘P’s’ on the title page.
What a great surprise to have both the Petal and Poppy books arrive on my front porch yesterday! We had an extra good time with bedtime stories last night—and brought our spare Petal and Poppy and the Penguin to Saskia’s classroom library. If you have a young or emerging reader, put these on your list. Note with fondness the way P and P’s relationship is tender and while not overtly romantic, surely could be. In my little city, we assume it is.
Last to share is a little essay for Brain Child about clutter, time, and the things I think about as I declutter. I’d call this a real life physics lesson about stuff, time, clutter, love and identity.
Grateful for time: time’s the thing that allows you the chance to grow, when you think about it, to let processes unfold (and feelings and development). It’s been a tough winter, so I’m grateful to feel grateful for it. Grateful, too, for the fact that it’s officially spring and with any luck, the weather will follow the dates. Pretty please. That was a lot of meta-gratitude, I know.
