Questions and answers

I observed the following conversation between my husband and my son tonight.
Ryan, "Hey Daddy, why are our buns on the back?"
Jason, "Well, uh, because that's where they are honey."
Ryan, "Why aren't our buns on our front?"
Jason, "Because our peeps are on the front. How would we go peep if our buns were on the front?"
Ryan, "Well, if took our peep off, we would have room for our buns."
Jason is totally stopped in his tracks....."Um, well that would hurt."

Sometimes the explanations are as funny as the questions.

After our rest

My dad is notorious in our family for saying super funny stuff when he is tired. Beyond tired really, into the silly zone. I think a tiny bit of this has been passed down to Ryan, because I swear some of the greatest stuff comes out of his mouth right before he falls asleep. Today at nap time was yet again, another blog worthy moment.
We are laying down ready for nap when Ryan rolls over, and the conversation goes like this.

Ryan "Hey, I have an idea."
Me "What's that honey?"
Ryan "After our rest we could go to Fred Meyer."
Me "What do we need at Fred Meyer honey?"
Ryan "Well, we could go to Fred Meyer and look at the clothes, and get some steak, and some ham, and some sugar, and some food for Weedie. Did we run out of Weedie food?"
Me (trying not to laugh) "No, I just got some food for Weedie."
Ryan "Well, then we can get some food for Sammydo."

And then he rolls back over.

Warm tats

I am working at the computer in the office. I am wearing my jammy pants and a t-shirt. Ryan comes in and hands me a tank top he found in the clean laundry pile. "Here, Mommy. Go ahead and put this on." I decide to play along. I put the tank top over my t-shirt and look to see his approval. He smiles hugely, pats my boob and says, "see, now your tats will stay nice and warm."

Ryan's nap time story

Sometimes when we are all snuggled down and ready to take a rest we will tell stories. If I am telling the story they always start with, "Once upon a time there was a little boy named Ryan..." and then I make stuff up from there. Lately Ryan has been telling me stories. His start like this, "Once upon a time there was a great Mommy..." No kidding. It is so cute. So here is Ryan's story from today. I will try to get it as verbatim as I can remember.

"Once upon a time there was a great Mommy. And she was a super hero. And she would fly around and around and around. And she would get bad guys. She was a great super hero. And she would get them with her laser arm. The end."

And less than two minutes later he was totally asleep. It was awesome.

Apparently my faculties are no match for the new facilities

Is it me or have public bathrooms become sort of mind boggling? Between automatic sensing faucet control, auto soap and paper towel sensors, and toilets that flush themselves, I seriously cannot keep up. I find myself doing a new sort of body sign language in the bathroom now. Either the auto flusher flushes while I am still actually using the toilet, which scares the crap out of me (no pun intended), or I end up standing on one leg, sort of high kicking the toilet sensor with the other foot. Then the gesturing continues at the sink. I glide my hands under the faucet over and over to get enough water, under the soap dispenser, again under the water, and if, miraculously, all that goes well, find myself waving hello to a large black box mounted on the wall in the hopes that it will dispense the two square inches it thinks will be sufficient to dry my hands.
But here's where it really gets bad. No two public bathrooms are alike. Some have auto toilet flushers, some don't. Some have handles to flush the toilet, some have those little black buttons it is impossible to depress with your shoe. Some have sensors that turn on the water, some still have (gasp) handles which allow water to flow freely at the users discretion. Some bathrooms have manual soap pumps, some don't.
And as if all this variety isn't bad enough, the diversity in paper towel dispensers is downright silly. You've got the hand crank, the pull out and another will follow, the little finger holed side turney knob, the automatic dispensers, the trifold single sheets...the list goes on and on. I actually once dried my hands in a high powered suction contraption made by the Dyson vacuum cleaner company. I held my hands in this little hand slot, which of course sensed them automatically, and this super loud, moderately scary suction began which literally sucked every ounce of moisture from my hands in like less than 20 seconds. Bizarre.
So if you see me in a public bathroom gesturing with arms and legs, bending at the waist to look at the faucet, waving at various inanimate objects over and over again, staring blankly at a faucet which clearly has an old fashioned handle and wondering why it won't turn on by itself...don't worry. It's just me trying to wash my hands.

Top ten worst things about being a perfectionist

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Comparison vs. Contentedness

Maybe its just me. Maybe its my out of whack brain chemistry, a product of my childhood, a bad habit allowed to run free for too many years, I'm not sure. Do other people do it? Does she do it? Who knows? But there I go again, comparing myself to others.
I think there is a natural tendency to judge ourselves, to evaluate how we are doing in life. How are things going? Are we accomplishing our goals? How do we need to adjust to our current situation? Comparing who we are to who we want to be, to who God made us to be. How else do we grow? I think this kind of comparison is good to do. But the other kind, the kind where we compare ourselves to other people, that's where we can start to go off track.
She has a better sense of style. She is skinnier. She is more spiritual. She has nicer hair. She is a better decorator. Her kids are more well behaved. Her kids go to bed at a normal hour. She is this and that and the other thing...better than I am. Nothing can destroy the possibility of being content with what you have/who you are faster than comparing yourself to someone else in this way. And sometimes we don't even realize we are doing it. We just have this vague sense that we are inadequate. And this is definitely not taking any thought captive. This is the opposite. This is letting our thoughts drag us through the mud.
From 2Cor. chapter 10:5 "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
Okay, so what exactly is the knowledge of God? What does God know about me (besides everything)? Wait. I think that's the point, actually. He KNOWS everything about me and still calls me His workmanship according to Eph 2:10. Whoa. So I need to demolish the argument that I am inadequate. And how do I do that exactly? By Phil 4:8 that's how. "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- THINK ABOUT SUCH THINGS." (my emphasis) How will I have time to compare my self to other people and consequently feel crappy about myself if I am thinking about such things?
So, the fact that I have bare white walls, wear my hair in a pony tail everyday, and don't own a pair of high heeled shoes IS FINE. It's not that I am okay in spite of these things. It's that I'm okay because of these things. Because He made me who I am. I am His workmanship. And if His workmanship has bare white walls and wears a pony tail everyday and flip flops instead of cutesy girlie high heels...I can be content with that.