Sometimes it is worth it to let it be.

Grace loves stickers. Give her a sheet of pooh bear or rainbow or horsey stickers and she will gasp quietly, like the way you'd gasp upon looking out your window on Christmas morning, holding a hot cocoa, to see a blanket of snow everywhere. A delighted gasp, a gasp that says, "I will eventually share this discovery but not until after I take it all in for myself." She apparently feels the same way about stickers as I do about seeing Scott walk in the door with flowers, or answering the phone and hearing my sister's voice. That is how much she loves them.

So yesterday, while I was busy trying to have a minute of sanity*, I heard the familiar little gasp of delight and turned to see Grace sticking 39 cent stamps all over our thank you cards.

When she saw I had noticed, she said, "Look, Mommy! Bird stickers!" As Scott and I lamented later after we fought over what I must have been doing while the girls tore open the stationary cabinet and made it look like Hallmark had barfed its store room in our den, those were pretty expensive little bird stickers. But as I expained to Scott in the midst of the fight, er, discussion, they were worth it.

*i.e. reading my new favorite blogs (this one and this one), er, connecting to other moms, er, researching thoughts about seminary, er, on the phone with a new friend...

Go to Sleep, You weary Hobo...

We have 3 "night night" CDs that we've played for Grace ever since she needed the car's help in napping almost 2 years ago. She has since learned to nap without the car, but the CDs have worn their way into our nap and night routines anyway. The second track on a great Americana lullabye CD that my dear friend Libby gave us has the un-PC title "Hobo's lullabye." Every once in a while, I hear "Homo" instead of "Hobo" and smile to myself envisioning a poor, lost gay guy trying to make his way through life on the rails:

Go to sleep, you weary hobo,
Let the towns go drifting by.
Listen to that sleel rail hummin',
That's the hobo's lullabye.

But I nearly laughed out loud at the realization today that Grace has had her own wrong version of the song this whole time. The song came on and she said, "I like this one about the hippo." Just picture these poor, weary hippos catching some rest on the trains as they make their way around the bluegrass South.

Go to sleep, you weary hippo...