Extreme outliers, a bell curve, a bear, dinner, and a story.
It’s rarely a really big thing that either lifts you up or crushes you. Sometimes you hear of that really big thing, but the day-to-day stuff, those little, seemingly mundane moments of life? I think that therein lies the real lifting and the crushing. And sometimes, when I really think of it in my geeky psychological terms of the ol’ bell curve, those extreme outliers feel the same – so uplifting that I’m left feeling crushed, down on my knees, just so darn grateful for giggles and wiggles and goofy smiles and goshdarnit just a big ball of LIFE.
I’m also pretty darn grateful for dinner out. :) Just keepin’ it real.
Our moments are simple. They usually involve crayons and legos or something boyish and tactile like that.
And when I intentionally make my world stop for a moment and breathe, I notice sweet similarities in these boys…
It would seem that a necessary tongue sticking out makes sure your colors go where you’d like and the masterpiece you’re creating is the one you’ve dreamed up in your head.
In the eye of the beholder, baby.
They live in a world built for people bigger than them. Imagine holding a cup as big as your torso with a straw sticking out of it so high that you have to hold said cup at belly button level just so the straw won’t go all rogue on you and enter a nostril.
The payoff? His new smile. It’s not just for the camera, either. It’s for “just because.”
I took the opp to pull in my favorite short people real quick and real tight.
And then carefully reminded the oldest of the two how to hold the camera and take a pic.
Looks as though I’ve embraced wearing a hat trucker style. I need a stylist…
Another outlier moment: Hank’s new tattoo. See the black band with the red stripe? He made a permanent commitment, well, permanent, and it lifted me and crushed me into a new level of mad love for him. (You can read about that commitment here and going down to “The Thin Red Line”.)
Even the wrapping up and packing up of dinner out has its own sweetness, like that of the light bouncing around and creating a warm cocoon for our 3yo…
And his reaching up (though begrudgingly) for a protector to lead the way.
How do you end a day like this?
With a bedtime story.
Read by our burgeoning reader. Twice.
It’s the best life of all.
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