Seeing the positive

I went to fill out some financial paperwork this week that required my driver's license number, and when I pulled out my license, I was horrified to find that it expired over two months ago and I had no idea.  So I scrambled to make sure I could get to the DMV early this morning (after a shower and blow-dry - very rare on my weekday mornings - so my hair would look decent in the picture. Josh just couldn't quite understand). 

Things started poorly when I got there and saw the big sign on the door saying "Cash or check only."  Neither the lone dollar bill in my wallet nor my checkbook sitting on my desk at home were going to be very helpful so I drove a few miles down the road to an ATM, got the cash, and came back. 

I checked in at 8:55 a.m.  And then I sat.  And sat and sat.  There were dozens of people.  It was crowded.  I was hungry.  I was near the door and it was rather cold (so what if I wasn't wearing socks and it was 37 degrees?  I am willing spring to arrive by my wardrobe choices).  It was a prime situation in which to feel very grumpy.  But I was actually holding in my hands the follow-up book to The Happiness Project, a book that has really proven to be inspiring to me on a daily basis, teaching me to focus on being, well to put it simply, happier in my already insanely lovely and privileged life. 

So instead of bemoaning the lost work time, that I'd rather be at Foster's eating a muffin, or my underlying worry that I might fail the sign test required to renew my license, I instead decided to accept the situation and look for the bright side.  I enjoyed the found time to read.  I caught up on celebrity gossip on my phone.  And when I started feeling antsy, I lifted my head and looked around.

What I saw was really touching.  There were no less than half a dozen sets of parents and teenagers, clearly there to get their first license.  I loved looking at the pairs and seeing the little traits that clearly linked them, whether it was something about their dress style or a distinctive shape of a nose. 

Mostly what I was fixated on, though, was that all of the boys were taller than their mothers.  I tried to imagine my sweet little man in 16 years, taller than me, standing in this line - probably awkwardly because they were all somewhat awkward - waiting for his driving test.  I tried to think about how I would feel.  As he walks out the door with the tester, will I wish him good luck? To have fun?  Will I feel nervous or excited or sad?  Today when he gets home from school and asks me to cuddle him, I'm pretty sure I'll hold him a little longer than usual, just because I still can.

Feelings, on paper

Josh has recently been encouraging Ella to write down her feelings when she is upset, and today she brought home an especially sweet note in her lunchbox. Apparently she got very upset at Lunch Bunch today when she discovered that the top part of the straw to her milk bottle was missing (turns out, Daddy didn't know that there are 4 pieces necessary to put together this particular bottle) and so she asked for some paper to write us a note about her feelings. I love that she is talking about her feelings, but I also have to say that the ever-growing collection of "I feel sad" notes is kind of breaking my heart.

(In case you aren't well-versed in 4 year old letters, this note reads "I feel sad and I love you. I lost my straw. Mommy Daddy")

Siblings

Sometime when I'm not completely exhausted from staying up too late to watch the Oscars, I want to write about the development of Ella and Dash's relationship which is amazing, infuriating, sweet, sad, and so many other complex things all at once.  But for now, just a few cute sibling anecdotes.

One cold and rainy afternoon recently, left to their own devices to come up with some fun, Ella and Dash settled on switching their clothes as the activity du jour.  They thought they were the two funniest people on Earth when they put on each other's outerwear.  Dash in pink stripes, Ella in the brown elbow-patch sweater that was 4 inches too short - I will give them that it was pretty cute.

Mixed up sweaters

They are also completely obsessed with building forts.  This activity (also good on the cold, rainy afternoons we've had lately) usually involves stacking up all of the pillows in the house, draping them with every blanket they can find, and today at least, adding a layer involving all of the dish towels and cloth napkins from the clean laundry baskets hanging around.  I love working in the kitchen while they create the forts because I can hear the constant giggles as they play, and they love hurling themselves into the big piles of pillows (see above for blurry fort jumping action).

And one last sweet sibling story.... today in the car, out of the blue, Dash started chanting "Yummy, Yummy, what do you see?  I see choc-o-late looking at me" (in the rhyme of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see? - a book I'm sure every parent of young children has memorized).  Ella thought this rather nonsensical rhyme was hilarious and brilliant, and the two of them went on to make up verse after verse of this rhyme about ice cream, vanilla, candy, and every other sweet they could think of.  Listening to them crack each other up was a sweet sweet sound.