We had a typically busy Saturday with gymnastics and soccer followed by a late lunch out, but it seemed somehow more excellent than usual. Before and after M’s soccer game there were games with kids and parents we know, so it was social. And beyond that, my little family is just funny. I started to try to write a post recounting the various amusing anecdotes, but honestly it all started to feel like guess-you-had-to-be-there stuff. Yes. Crap. There, I just started to explain one, and I’m writing myself into a corner. We just laugh hard. We high-five when one family member nails another with a quip. We’re not afraid to look stupid. Or, correction: Cute W and I are not afraid to look stupid, and we happily torment our children when the opportunity presents itself. And the opportunities abound. So we laughed all through the morning and early afternoon.
When we got home, I started rounding up our Halloween decorations and I pulled out our Thankful Tree. M groaned, “Oh, not that thing! Do we have to pull out the thankful tree?” I insisted, and said, “It’s coming out. That’s what we do. If you can’t think of anything to be thankful about, that’s your problem. But that’s no way to live. Embrace some gratitude. You’ll be happier.” She remained unconvinced. “Or,” I suggested, “you might say that you’re thankful that in seven years or so you’ll get to move out.” This launched a series of ungracious gratitude brainstorming. . . “I’m thankful that I didn’t smack that girl who kept grabbing my jersey today,” et cetera. She didn’t add anything to the tree and was gone before we knew it, to a school activity followed by a sleepover. I started the ball rolling, as I always do, and I went with being thankful that our family is so fun and funny.
Later Cute W and I were having a mock-fight over reading to J. Earlier, I’d been reading one of the Rick Riordan books to her while Cute W was playing some game on his phone, and he dealt with the mild guilt that he was playing on his phone instead of staining the front door or doing something else productive by periodically calling out, “I could read to her!” It got on my nerves, because I’d said no, no, I was happy to read, but he wasn’t really listening. He was just yelling it whenever he got to a pause. So later I was scolding him for interrupting my reading to suggest that he should read instead, because I, too, am an excellent reader. At the time, J was upstairs taking a shower, but she finished in time to hear the tail end of the discussion, and she yelled down, “It’s okay! You can both read to me! Just take turns.” Ah, yes, we agreed that this was wide advice indeed. Moments later J came downstairs, hair still dripping, and went straight for the supply of thankful leaves.
I freakin’ love that tree. And I’m going to predict that later, when we’re not paying attention, M will cave and decide she’s thankful for something, too.
