evening snapshot

my heart is melting right now. i'm sitting in the big comfy chair in my livingroom, listening to my husband play the guitar and my creative two year old use his adorable imagination. he's pretending to come and go through the door leading to our basement. each time he shuts the door and yells, "bye! bye mom! have a good day dad! have a good day, mommy-mommy!" a moment later he knocks, throws open the door and announces, "i'm BACK! how was your day, mommy? how was your day daddy?"

when we reply with "good, how was YOUR day?", he says, "good. i went on a mystery trip."

"Oh! where did you go?"

"to see goats and ice cream!" (which i guess was one of the first mystery trips we ever went on-- to Highland Orchard, where they have both of those exciting things-- and every time we mention going on a mystery trip he says with great anticipation, "to see goats and ice cream???!!!")

as his drama unfolds, i ask him what kind of ice cream he got. he says "water ice ice cream!" (which we got on our last mystery trip to St. Peter's Village and Rita's Water Ice).

it's not just the play-acting. it's the genuine look of enjoyment on his face each time he bursts through the door and rushes over to my chair, wide-eyed and just as exuberant as the time before to tell me the EXACT same thing.

this time he notices that daddy has left the room and says, "i better go find him."

where does he get this stuff?

i love these long stretches of pure, innocent happiness. before dinner he was not in the greatest of moods. whining comes so naturally to us all. but he is using his 2 yr oldness to perfect it lately. but after dinner he went to the basement with daddy and came back up 20 minutes later singing and happy.

i guess that's the simplicity of 2. when you're happy, you're really really happy. and when you're not you're sooooo not.

fortunately those uber happy times are enough to melt my heart into oblivion, so that i keep loving him through the extremely unhappy times where all he seems to speak is "whine-eeze", as my parents used to call it when we were little.

God knew what He was doing when he created this whole parent/child relationship. i can't imagine my life without this little man. even when he's said "NO" for the 500th time in an hour (yes, it's possible), i would die a thousand deaths were he to be taken from me.

now that he's found daddy in the other room, and has played catch, tickle monster, and smush-a-lator, and sung the alphabet song at least 5 times, he is being encouraged to get ready for bed. As dave and i celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary yesterday, we reflected on how drastically our lives have changed since we were single. and how much more fulfilling it is to come home to one another and our boys at the end of each day. we LOVED being single, but we just can't imagine life any other way now. our joy is magnified by each other's joys... and now by our sons' joys. we marvel at how much has happened in such a short span of time to change us completely and forever. and while we couldn't wait to get away for a romantic dinner at a fancy restaurant and just be alone for a few hours, it was somehow just as sweet to come home and find that C was still awake, singing in his bed, waiting for a goodnight hug and kiss.

life is good.

and i believe, now, he's waiting for that goodnight hug and kiss once more...