Simple Gifts

I have always loved every rendition of that Shaker tune, Simple Gifts.  When I heard a new one the other night on our Brown Family Adventure, I loved it, too.

Because we really are easily pleased.  Each one of us--Bill, Landon and I, can find such happiness in the simplest of things.

Bill: plans the adventure to include a bookstore he still has a gift card to.  We take 10-minute turns taking exclusive care of Landon so the other can relish the books, not just watchfully protect them.

Jodi: particularly enamored with the mini spoon that was in the hot chili sauce at the restaurant we had a gift card to. It allowed me to save a lot of face because it was the perfect size for Landon and I had forgotten any utensils for him. 

Landon: cannot contain his growing anticipation of our turn through the carwash.  He sits silently mesmerized through every fascinating cycle and then babbles about it intensely for the next few miles.

Bill: comes home to work (and rework) a poem--and I can tell he is having fun returning to a pastime he usually doesn't have time for.

Jodi: wishes we could record Landon "singing" in the backseat of the car.  The Jewel lullaby cd I got from the library really caught his imagination, and melted his mama's heart.

Landon: got home later than we anticipated, and had to go straight to bed, with no story.  Not before cracking himself (and me) up with antics with his blanket and singing his encore edition of all his favorite songs to no one in particular.

 So that's our big night on the town: a carwash, Chinese food, and a trip to the bookstore.  Followed by poems and baby songs and the hope that we will always be so easily, simply pleased.