Lost Hiatus: Have a Happy Post Day

For days in my head, as this cold virus and its attendant nasty cough has kicked my ass, I have been thinking about the post entitled: How Being a Mom Means You Don’t Get Any Sick Days. Especially how this cold virus and its attendant nasty cough utterly defeated me this weekend, and yet I could not collapse into a heap of sleep-deprived, stuffy-head, hacking-up-a-lung achy-ness and pain until Monday, and then again yesterday. (I am pretty sure that going to work and then coming home with the kids would not have kicked my ass so thoroughly Tuesday if I had actually been able to sleep. But that attendant nasty cough had other plans for me, Delsym and hot water with honey and lemon — and possibly a shot of whiskey — be damned, and entertained me endlessly, or, rather, until about 1:30 in the morning.)

But instead, I thought, “No. No. Instead of bitching about it, let’s go around the world and tell people what you love about being a mom.” After these many posts about sorrow, and loss, and the gifts that loss can bring, let’s do something happy.

(Oh, and the Lost post? Due to various and sundry health issues, not all of them wholly my own, Lost theorizing on this here site has been postponed until further notice. Or Sunday, which ever comes first.)

Here are a few things I love about being a mom:

* My girls’ giggles. Monkey has developed an appreciation for slapstick, and nothing makes her giggle harder than animated pratfalls and physical high-jinks. Bun laughs at anything Monkey laughs at, and in turn, tries to get Monkey giggling at her.

* My girls’ love of and appreciation for music. Sometimes, instead of a DVD, they want me to put on the CD and dance around to the tunes. They love singing in the car. They squabble over the portable CD player (note to relatives: a good gift opportunity right there). Sometimes, Monkey will be humming a song, and Bun will recognize it, and start singing along. It blows my mind.

* My girls’ imaginations. Everything is alive, including forks and spoons, and cheddar bunnies. Everything talks and sings and falls and climbs and needs to be tucked in. Pretend naps need snores. Pretend waking ups need dramatic cover-throwing-asides and loud announcements: “I wake up!” Littlest Pet Shoppers (as Monkey calls them now) need names, and need to be brushed and fed, and each one needs its own home inside a plastic Easter egg, which in turn needs to be piled into a basket and carried to bed.

* My girls’ ability to love on each other and (on occasion) share. Their ability to play together, if not for long periods of time, for long enough periods of time. My girls holding hands with each other, and with me, as we walk down the street or in a store.

* My girls’ enthusiasm — for anything. Time for a bath? Yay! cries Bun, throwing both hands in the air. Going to a restaurant for dinner? Yippee, Monkey yells, jumping up and down. Heading to the library? Stupendous! is the girls’ reactions as they scramble for socks and shoes and coats and toys that need to be brought along for the ride. And most of all, for their enthusiasm upon seeing me, upon seeing their father, upon learning that it is Saturday and Mommy doesn’t have to go to work, upon pancakes on Sunday with Daddy.

* Their boundless love of me and Daddy, and Nonna & Pap-pap, and Bella & Tadone, and for just about everyone, really, and life itself. Their joy of and their wonder at it all.

Tags:
(The first two are other Burgh moms, both of whom I suspect of having a more international outlook on life than I, and the contacts that would go with that. Do not ask me why I have this impression, although one of them is married to a Brit, and the other to a lawyer. The other three I found here.)
ClumberKim
Masquerading as a Normal Person
Playard Mommy (New Zealand)
Overflow… (Cebu — the Philippines. Yes, I had to look it up.)
Missionary Moms (Russia)