I am blessed, make no mistake. Sometimes I look at my life, and I think, "Dang, girl, you really fell into a good situation in spite of spending most of your 20s making bad choices." Opportunities and encouragement are bountiful, and I am endlessly grateful for this. It's not that nothing bad has ever happened to me; rather I believe that even the bad things have helped me end up here, and every day is a victory. Seriously, it's a world of Galore, and a big part of why this is so is my Posse of Ninja Moms.
Yeah.
Back in my college days, my Ninjas were my girlfriends, filling up my speed dial. We weren't moms then but we were already laying the groundwork for subsequent incarnations of ourselves. We laughed and cried and fought and drank celebrated together. Through the years, I've added to my circle of friends, which is very easy to quantify, thank you Facebook... And now, instead of calling one person at a time when I need help with something, I post a bat-signal on Facebook to my Posse of Ninja Moms. For real, these ladies, many of whom I've only known online, share their wisdom, empathy, funny stories, advice, attagirls, and support.
I love it. I just love that my friends do this. I love that friends will email me, requesting that I float their issue to the Ninja Moms. It's so fantastic, these amazing women who take the time to help each other out. The range of responses to a call for the Posse to rally is impressive. We're all at different stages in our motherhood, but nobody is discounted outright. New moms are given just as much credence as oldestablishedcurrent veterans. There is no judgement, no condemnation. The Ninja Moms do not tolerate Mom On Mom Hate Crimes. We discuss pros and cons of the suggestions, and it can go on for 100 posts with email follow ups.
It's a growing phenomenon at our house, too. When Boo brings us to our knees with whatever at that moment makes us the Worst Parents Ever, Mr. Incredible will suggest that I take it to the ladies and see what they think. What's fabulous about this, is that either we are given a foundation for a solution, or (at the very least) we are reassured by the knowledge that yes, this totally sucks but is completely normal, and no, this isn't permanent.
A century ago, I'm sure that there were Posses of Ninja Moms--I like to think that they had conversations just like ours as they were quilting, or putting up the tomato harvest, or having tea on the Titanic (100 years ago next month, can you believe it? I'll never let go, Jack!). A century from now, our great-granddaughters will gather around the space-watercooler or send a telepathic space-message (I'm so high-tech and I think in terms of innovation, yes?) to their Space-Posse about some space-tantrum their kids won't stop throwing.
I hope that everyone has her Posse of Ninja Moms. I don't know where I'd be without mine. Boo would likely have turned feral by now, that's for sure.
It's March first! It's March first! Daylight Savings time begins in ten days! Bulbs are sprouting! My CSA basket has asparagus in it!
Spring! Spring is thisclose to being HERE! I love Spring. I love it so much that I always capitalize it. Spring! It's the inspiration for symphonies and young love and when you search the Google for images of "Spring" you get bright colors and clear skies and baby chicks.
It's when you open the curtains all the way, and you realize that your blinds are covered in a year's worth (or more... no judgement from me) of yuck, so you open the blinds and you realize that the windows are even worse. Because who cleans windows every week? I certainly don't. As much as I'd like to think that I'm this?
Um, I'm not that.
Yeah, my windows look like your windows. And that's cool. Because every year about this time, I get inspired to clean up anything that isn't able to clean itself (in recent years this also included people, but fortunately Boo will enthusiastically partake in a nightly bubble bath).
The weather gets warmer, so I open the windows and sunlight trickles into the house. And that early Spring sunlight tends to illuminate things in a way that a houseful of light bulbs cannot (especially those ridiculous CFC twisty looking lights that are just so awful). Spring cleaning is a big deal. For me, when the weather warms up, I like to have people over for dinner or a movie or game night (Apples to Apples? HIGHlarious with the right crowd). From April until October, it's barbecue season, and even if we're not hosting, I like to reciprocate when I can. I'm more likely to do this when the house is clean.
For me, it starts with the windows. I have no illusions about doing them all in one day. Or in one weekend. Because I have things to do besides clean windows all damn weekend. But for a couple of hours? Like, during naptime? I'm on it.
The one tool you really do need is something like this. It telescopes, so you're not on a ladder. It's one piece, so you're not switching between the spongy thing and the squeegee.
Start in the room you use the most. Those are the windows you'll be glad you cleaned first.
Go take a look at your screens. Figure out how to remove them. Usually, they have tabs or something along one edge on the inside. Screens bend pretty easily, so be careful, but they should just pop out. Keep them in order--even if your windows look to be the same size, they may be just different enough that the screens aren't interchangeable.
Lay the screens down on a flat surface (even on the grass...) and hose them off on both sides. Stand them up so they'll drip-dry.
Fill a plastic bin with hot water, two cups or so of white vinegar, and Dawn dishsoap (add the soap last so it doesn't foam up too much).
Grab a kitchen towel for wiping the squeegee.
Start at one end, dunk your spongy thing, start scrubbing. Get the corners, get the sills, get all that crap off your windows.
Immediately follow with the squeegee. Wipe off the blade after each swipe. One window at a time.
When your screens are dry, put them back on. Don't rush this. If you put wet screens back on your windows, you screw up what you just cleaned. Trust me.
That's it. It's a job, for sure, and you will not be clean when you're done. But your windows will be crystal clear. This is one of those once-a-year jobs, at best. I did ours last May right after we moved into our house--it had been vacant for years, and cleaning the windows made me feel like we were really taking ownership of the place. I'm well aware that this likely makes me a total psycho. I don't care. After a year's worth of wind and dust and storms and gunk, cleaning the windows makes it feel like Spring.
Sometimes it's just hard for me to relax. Isn't that weird? It's frustrating. I feel like this guy sometimes.
That's some very intense thinking going on right there. If you look closely, really study him, all you see is tension. He's not sitting comfortably. He's not chillaxing there on his plinth. Every muscle is tight. His brow is furrowed. Even the way he's sitting is not how you sit when you're just hanging out. He's twisted so that his right elbow is on his left leg. His center of gravity is off-center, if that makes sense. Rodin made him that way on purpose, I once learned. He's dwelling on something significant, and there's effort in that.
Once, I was getting a massage at one of those fancy-schmancy places, the lady said "You don't relax, do you?" Ouch. No, Helga, I don't. I dwell like Mr Thinker up there, and I get all bent out of shape, literally, because of the things I don't let go of. Most nights, before I can go to sleep, I work hard at relaxing starting at my head and working my way down to my toes. Sometimes I have to do it more than once.
I've started seeking out sources of restfulness. It's funny, but when you're looking for it, you find it. One of my friends on Facebook bakes these lovely cookies as a home business and someone emailed her and said that she must be a patient and loving soul to make such peaceful cookies. Isn't that nice? Peaceful cookies. And they totally are peaceful cookies (I'd post a link, but I think she's taking a break...). I love the idea of seeing a quality of peace in something so ordinary like a cookie.
One night on my way to pick up Boo from daycare, I saw this:
Everybody stopped to look at it. People were pulled over to the side of the road, taking in the wonder of this sunset. Strangers took a moment to look at each other and say, Do you see this? Do you see this amazing thing that's happening in the sky? It's so beautiful! Yes it is.
And it was. It lasted about 10 minutes, and people are still talking about that one night with the amazing sunset a couple of months ago. For an entire city filled with jaded souls like this place often seems to be (have I ever mentioned that I'm in Las Vegas? yeah, born and raised.) we were moved by this moment of unexpected peacefulness.
(As I write this, I'm laughing, reminded of the Simpson's Treehouse of Horror episode where Homer is lured by the smell of Unexplained Bacon. It's kind of the same thing, isn't it? :) //end tangent)
Every night before we shut off the last lights (and before I go through my Relaxation Workout) I go into Boo's room to tuck her in. She usually falls over asleep mid-action, and tucking her in generally involves flipping her over, pulling blankets out from around her legs, unraveling her from her last adventure of the day. I set her to rights, smooth the blankets over her, and then I watch her snuggle into this new space and relax into the coolness of the pillow. I carry that moment with me to bed, and when I feel the other stuff creeping in the next day, I go back to it.
Many (many, many, many, MANY) things in this world are irritating to me. Ask 10 people who know me, and you'll likely get 10 completely different lists of at least 10 irritants, and they will all be accurate. In my quest to Get A Grip, I've been working toward being less irritated, and this means letting fewer things irritate me.
It hasn't been easy. My biggest coach in this process has been my daughter. Boo is 3, and she is an obstacle course. Exhibit A:
Boo has taught me the value of asking, "Is this a hill worth dying on?" Sometimes, the answer is yes. There are things that are just dealbreakers, and they will never not bug me. One such thing? When other people waste my time. OH I hate this. There is NOTHING in this WORLD more INFURIATING to me than when someone wastes my time. This will never change. What must change, then, is what falls into the category of "That Jackass Is Wasting My Time" and realizing that there's generally a solution for how I can remedy the situation.
When someone is doing 25mph in a 45 on a two-lane road? WASTING MY TIME. That person will receive an angry honk and the universal gesture for "what the hell?!" If that same person is doing it on a 6-lane road? Eh. There's a solution, and that solution is a quick lane change with nary a dirty look as I pass them.
When someone asks me to look for something, and I bust myself searching high and low to no avail for an hour on my day off only to learn that they didn't look for it themselves in the first place? (This happened yesterday, and is the inspiration for this topic...) And then they tell me they didn't look for it and my only response can be silent incredulity while I compose myself? The solution? Well, what's done is done, but perhaps a diplomatic conversation about how that's not very considerate or respectful of my time, and perhaps next time a quick look-see around one's own vicinity before expanding the search to mine would be super awesome? Yeah, that's our solution. (We'll see how this goes...) (We also learned not to be all "I informed you thusly" about it when they find the missing item in.plain.sight. in their own vicinity.)
When someone is late for an appointment, doesn't call, doesn't email, doesn't apologize when it finally starts and just attributes it to "Oh hahahaha I run late all the time?" WASTING MY TIME. There isn't always a solution. Sometimes the jackass latecomer is (on the org chart, at least) a professional superior. Sometimes, seething quietly is the only answer.
What makes the silent simmer possible and easier is when I deal better with the other stuff. If I don't spend all my energy getting all bent out of shape about the stuff I can resolve or even dismiss, then I tend not to get as irritated by the bigger stuff that's beyond my control.
It would be easy to call this "My Favorite Things!!!" with some cute little reference to raindrops on roses and schnitzel with noodles. But I like to give context to why I like or don't like something. And I'm not Oprah (yet...). So I've made the following list based upon how much easier my life is and how much better I look because of everything on it.
I'm not a big believer in gadgets. I'm not an early adopter of new technology. I exist within the same time and space that you do, which means that I only have 24 hours every day and a limited amount of places to put my worldly goods. Stuff that enters my time and space needs to earn its keep, and these five things work overtime for me.
White Vinegar: This is amazing stuff. A.MAZ.ING. I cook with it. I clean with it. I do laundry with it. If I could marry it, I would.
Substitute half a cup for fabric softener. SERIOUSLY. Do it. White Vinegar plus Oxi-Clean equals perfect laundry.
Fill a spray bottle with equal parts white vinegar and plain old Dawn dishsoap. You'll never buy Windex again.
Need a surface cleaner? I got this great idea at Little Brick Ranch Get a jar, put orange rinds in it (clean them off very well), fill with white vinegar, and seal. For 2 weeks or so, shake the jar every day. Then, strain it through some cheesecloth (or whatever you have, really) into a new, clean jar. That's your starter; leave it in the cupboard. Get a spray bottle, fill with 3 parts water to 1 part orangey vinegar. Boom.
Did you cook something three days ago, and your kitchen still stinks? Get a cereal bowl, fill with white vinegar, put it on the counter. The vinegar will absorb the odor. FOR REAL.
Steam Mop: We have a 3 year old daughter and a Labrador retriever. The kitchen, playroom, and bathrooms are tile. They get so gross, so very gross. The steam mop fixes that. I like the B&D steam mop, but I've heard good things about the Shark as well. They go on special on Amazon and and Target. Worth every dime.
The Wrinkle Guard setting on my dryer: Because sometimes, you just don't get to the laundry the minute the dryer stops. You know how hair dryers have a "cool blast" setting, and you push that when your hair's all dry but you want it to maintain some body? The wrinkle guard setting does that for your clothes. This means you can put a load in the washer before you go to bed, put it in the dryer in the morning, and put it away that night. WOOHOO.
The Roku Box: This thing makes me feel like Jane Jetson. It's a little tiny hard-drive that turns a wi-fi network into a cache of ten million movies. Netflix streaming? check. Amazon Prime? check. Pandora? check. Hulu? CHECK. We cancelled cable six months ago, and the only thing we really miss is Food Network. We feel very smug about no longer subsidizing Snooki or whatever hot mess they're showing on TLC these days (I don't even know what hot mess is on TLC = AWESOME).
Super programmable universal remotes: We have one remote upstairs, one downstairs. Takes a little bit to program, but it's really not bad. One remote to rule them all!
I've justthisminute decided to start a new series called "Five Things". Every now and then, I'm going to rock your world with five things that I love that I think you might love too. This is Installment #1 :)
I live and die by calendars and schedules. The only reason I was willing to upgrade to a smartphone is that I could link it to my Google calendar (oh, how I love the Google...). The day I learned to link it to my Google Docs changed my life.
I have a spreadsheet that is my weekly housecleaning schedule.
Full disclosure:
Everything does not always happen. I do skip days. The goal is not to skip too many in a row, and then jump back in when I can.
I have a cleaning lady who comes in once a month. She goes over the entire house, but what I really depend on her for is thorough vacuuming and cleaning the showers/bathtubs. Everything else she does is a bonus that ultimately saves me probably 6 hours a month. Worth it.
I start with the Room Checklist : I deal with whatever biggest pile/eyesore/fire catches my eye. Think about your kitchen, for example. Somewhere in it, is a pile that never quite goes away. Once a week, I deal with that stupid pile. Next I take a lap--I start at one end and work my way around, putting things back where they go, dusting, wiping off, tidying up. No big whoop.
Daily is the minutiae that if it doesn't get done at least 90% of the time, other stuff piles up behind it. Worst case scenarios include: If the dishwasher is full of clean dishes, the sink gets full of dirty dishes, the counter gets full of newer dirty dishes, and I can't cook a meal so we eat cereal or get takeout. If the cedar chest at the foot of the bed has a pile of clean unfolded laundry on it, then dryer has clean dry laundry in it, the washer has clean wet laundry in it, the basket has dirty laundry in it, and the hamper has old dirty laundry in it, and Boo has no Princess Panties to wear, which is NOT A GOOD SITUATION..
Special Projects is my Big Picture, Longer Term To-Do List. This is the stuff that when I have a minute (which does happen if I stay on top of the other two lists...) I can take care of.
The best part of all of this is that it's maybe half an hour out of my day. Tops. None of it is a crazy deep cleaning/scrubbing tile with a toothbrush sort of task. It's maintenance. Maintenance is good.
Calendars are also a fantastic way to stay ahead of the game. Mr. Incredible is trained willing to email me his doctors appointments and work travel information, and I just add them to the calendar whenever I get them. I color code his travel, so if he's gone for several consecutive days (or weeks, yikes) then I can quickly get an idea of what my own time is going to look like.
I also use the calendar to keep track of what I've made for dinner--a couple of times a week I take a few minutes to make a quick 5PM appointment that's just whatever we had (i.e. "pork chops, rice, salad, steamed veggies"). This serves 2 purposes for me: I don't accidentally make the same thing twice in three days (it's happened...) and after a month, I have a month's worth of meal planning ready for next month. Everybody wins!
Not everybody works this way, I know, but it's kept me sane. When I was pregnant with Boo, I knew we were going to need a way to keep ourselves organized. This helps me do that.
The last thing I want is for people to roll eyes at what I write. (Click the link, read the post, and smirk about just how much you don't relate to a word of it.)
I mean, I get that the whole self-improvement thing can easily get happy clappy, and suddenly we can see the potential awesomeness in EVERY.SINGLE.THING around us. We look at our lives and we know that there's got to be something better that can happen. We seek so much. We want to have less and still somehow manage to have more. We work hard for the money (so you better treat us right) and sometimes we get frustrated by people who seem to work less and pass us by anyway.
I'm still at the very early stages of figuring out what this Get A Grip thing is going to be. It's very easy to sit here and write a bunch of myopic tripe on how to be perfect or better or whatever. I could focus very specifically on one topic (I just love this chick) or I could try to cover everything in the world (God help me, I love her too). In determining the goals for this.... project, then, I'm going to work through creating my own goals. What do I want my world to look like when I'm not sitting here writing about how to make the world better?
I want to wake up at Not 6:30AM.
I want to have more time with my daughter out of the car doing cool things
than I do with her in the car on the way to stuff that sucks.
I want what I do for a living to have value.
I want the time spent away from my family to be worth being away from my family.
I want to love what I do.
There's more, I'm sure. Interesting that 3 of the 5 things that came to mind first are about time. My time is not my own right now, and I think that's a big part of why I'm seeking a change. I've played the game for quite long enough. It's scary to think about letting go of the security of a state paycheck and pension, but the status quo is making me wither away (oh, the drama of it all...) and I just want more. I need more than this. I need to give a damn and be surrounded by people who give a damn about me giving a damn, dammit!
I don't know what else to write. I'm sitting in my sad cube at 3:10PM on a Friday, with work to do but no interest in doing it, and no real incentive other than the prospect of some vague personal satisfaction that might spark as a result of getting something done. All I can think of is where I'd rather be. Not geographically, although I'm always up for some discussion about fabulous vacations. Not personally, because I can't imagine being happier with home and family than I am now. Professionally, though, it's wide open. I am more than a square on the bottom of some crappy org chart.
My inspiration for getting organized was my grandmother. When she passed away in 2002, my father and I spent 6 months clearing out her single-wide mobile home. At the time, "hoarding" wasn't part of the mainstream lexicon like it is now. We didn't have a way to categorize what we were dealing with. We just knew that something had to be done with all the stuff in that trailer. It was overwhelming. It was right out of the TV shows with which I'm now so obsessed. In fact, it's the reason I'm so obsessed with them. What causes a person never to be able to let go of anything, ever? How does it get that far?
As we sorted through this mountain of boxes, we kept an inventory because ultimately a lot of what we unearthed was donated. The nearby battered women's shelter benefited the most--she had made hundreds of pieces of clothes, each one sealed in one of those plastic produce bags you put your lettuce in at the store, folded three times and then sealed with four straight pins (yes, 10 years later I still remember this). Never worn; just... saved. Saved for what? We'll never know. She never talked about what was in the boxes that filled her home floor to ceiling. She would just smile and say that all of it was for us. Boy, she wasn't wrong.
When we were finished, I began to look around my own house. I had recently moved out of my childhood home and into my own, and I didn't really have a decorating plan so I just put stuff in that I already had, or that my dad wanted out of his house (he'd learned his lesson too, for the most part). All of the family heirlooms that You Do Not Throw Out Ever ended up with me. Overwhelming. There was such weight attached to every piece of it. And we couldn't use that stuff--the cedar chest of linens that were last laundered and ironed by my great-grandmother who died in 1971? Good lord, that stuff is sacred! What if something happens to it?
I decided to break that cycle.
Sure, there's stuff that is so precious and so single-purposed, that of course it remains in its pristine, preserved state. But table linens? Fair game. That bolt of wool some great aunt brought back from Scotland that's the ancient family clan tartan? Oh that's totally going to be a blanket (I'm not so handy with sewing, or it would be a skirt). A hand-crocheted tablecloth that was a wedding gift to my grandparents in 1938 that I can guarantee was in the original tissue paper?
Totally on our Thanksgiving table last year.
And the rest of the stuff? If I don't love it, it's gone. Simple as that. Usually donated, but sometimes eBay has lent a hand.
It's not always easy to let go of stuff, especially if you're just the latest in a long line of relatives to whom it has been bequeathed. The heaviest words in the world are "It's been in the family forever" and "I remember when [insert name of random/little known/disliked ancestor] did/made/bought/gave/took/stole this whatever-it-is."
But it's OK to use Great Grandma's china on a non-holiday. It's OK to refuse to put something in your house that isn't something you love. It's OK to pass these things along to people who will actually use and enjoy them (they're out there--again, eBay's in business for a reason). It's OK to create your own rules for what sort of stuff is allowed in your home and to let go of everything else.
The idea of being content is intriguing to me. It's not about being thrilled or tired or anything else. It's about being OK with how things are. This is something that I've decided I really want to work on this year--being OK with how things are. That doesn't mean that everything is the way I would have chosen. It means that I am able to be comfortable with how things are.
That's becoming my recurring theme for 2012: How Things Are. It's why I'm here (writing this blog on this topic, not in the larger, universal/existential kind of way, which a subject for an entirely different blog, I'm sure). Historically (or, How Things Were) I have tended to be hyperfocused on past wrongs or future assumptions. It's been easy to still be pissed about something that happened years ago. Or to be so wrapped up in some future event (ever planned a wedding? most boring day ever is the first day back at work AFTER the wedding) that it becomes all you see.
In the immortal words of Garth Algar, it's time to live in the now.
Yesterday, Mr. Incredible called out sick to work. I took a sympathy sick day (read: I don't feel like going either) and in the interest of not getting dressed at all (Pajama Wednesday!) we kept Boo home from daycare. It was a good day. Like a REALLY good day, with sufficient time spent doing laundry and couching and reading and frolicking with our (newly acquired) dog. At the end of it, Mr. Incredible asked me if I was happy.
Yes, I replied, every minute that I'm home. And that's the absolute truth. We moved into our "forever home" last spring, and it has become such a soft spot to land. Sure, we have projects (um, back yard is dirt) and adjustments (budget, which is going to be its own series of posts once I can wrap my brain around it...) but on the whole it's exactly the right place for us. That right there? Content.
This is the first year I've really put effort and consideration into New Years Resolutions (yeah yeah yeah lose weight get healthy blah blah blah). Everything I read, all those worksheets you download and fill out in the hopes that some magical solution would be revealed, all the "what's it all about?" pondering actually revealed something this time: Living in the now is about both forgiveness and patience.
Forgiveness is hard, man. Really hard. It goes against every fiber of my being. If I forgive you for what you KNOW you did wrong, then how will I be able to continue to be wronged? My strength comes from having endured whatever it was I've been through, right? Forgiving doesn't take that away. Forgiving is the pinnacle of Letting It Go. It's not a denial that something happened. It's not permission for it to happen again. It's just letting it go so I can move on to the good stuff.
Patience. Ugh. Patience SUCKS. In my cube in the inside corner of my very stressful department, I have a lovely Chinese character on the wall that translates to "The Good Luck Is Coming." And I'm sure that the good luck IS coming. But I can't just sit on the edge of my chair and will it to show up. I'll miss out on the good stuff that's happening now.
Contentedness, for me at least, is a continuum that looks like this:
Forgiveness--------------- Good Stuff --------------------------Patience
And that right there is the goal: To focus on the good stuff in the middle of the past and the future.
My daughter Boo turned 3 last week. For weeks we've been struggling with her emerging personality (because of course she doesn't act like me or my husband AT ALL oh no not even a little...) and we've just been worn out by the effort of Having A Child Who Is Three.
We were doing it wrong. Totally. 100% Not Right Even A Little. Last night, we got schooled.
Backstory: Boo has a lot of stuff. She has an area in our house, just off the kitchen, that will someday be a breakfast room or something but right now it's where her stuff is. Our expectation is that at the end of the day, before bathtime, she will pick up her stuff and put it away. We've asked around, and this is not an unreasonable expectation.
But she wasn't doing it. We'd set the timer for a VERY generous amount of time, and she would just not pick up. Anything that was left on the floor or wherever was "taken away" (read: tossed into spare bedroom with exasperation and frustration). About a week ago, I had HAD.IT. and I cleared out her playroom. There was not a single toy in that room. It was like after the Grinch Stole Christmas.
And she didn't care. She was fine. She didn't seem to miss her stuff at all.
We were devastated. HOW did we get to this point, where our child was so S-P-O-I-L-E-D that she had no regard for her stuff; she had no concept of what it meant to take care of her stuff. Her stuff was important, dammit, and HOW were we going to make that point? How is she ever going to learn to appreciate and manage Her Stuff?
Last night, Mr. Incredible reached his limit and pulled out a big black garbage bag and started putting stuff in. She wasn't going to pick up? Fine. She was going to watch AND HELP her stuff be put in that bag to give to other kids. Fast forward 10 minutes, and all of her baby dolls (probably 5-6?) and their stuff, including the cradle, all of her dress-up clothes, some stuffed animals, the dollhouse that she'd received as a birthday gift the day before (?!) and on and on. And she was fine. No trauma, no meltdown. She was fully aware that this bag of stuff was going to be given to other kids.
We were speechless. I was in tears. We CANNOT give all of this stuff away. I was sad, and I told her that. She was sorry I was sad, but was not sad herself.
Just after we'd tucked her in with more stern words about Learning The Value and Appreciating The Effort and all sorts of other BS that seemed important, she emerged from her room with a big smile, and said she needed to go to the bathroom. She went, and I asked her why the Pink Bear she wanted to sleep with was so special, but the other stuff was not. Here's what she said, as best as I can remember it, with no elaboration or embellishment by me:
"Mama, Pink Bear be's special because he's soft <insert cuddle of Pink Bear>. The toys in the bag for other kids are for the other kids because the other kids can play with them and I have Pink Bear and Monkey and my stories and I like when we read stories and have songs and go places and that's good and tomorrow daddy's going to give the bag to other kids and I'll got Pink Bear and that's good."
Our jaws were on the floor. Our three year old daughter was giving us a lesson on the value of the time we spend with her, the things that are important, and how we share with people who aren't as lucky as we are.
I was suspicious, I admit. "She's setting us up," I told Mr. Incredible. But she wasn't. She was just telling us that the stuff is just stuff, and the things that were important were the things that make her feel happy.
Tonight we're going to go through the big black garbage bag together, and the stuff that she's ready to give to other kids? She can (within appropriate reason, of course...). The stuff that's important to her, that makes her happy, that she loves? She will keep, and I'm interested to see how she takes care of it.
The lesson I took from this is that sometimes, it's just stuff. When you're unable or unwilling or uninterested in taking care of your stuff, it's time to go through and keep what you love and pass along what you don't.
I'm reminded of George Carlin's fantastic bit about Stuff:
