The World According to Landon

Landon's prayer over dinner:

Dear God,
Thank you for God
And thank you for the movie we're watching after dinner.
Aww-men.

"Did you say anything about a movie after dinner?"
"Me neither."

Let the record show that no prior mention of movies was made before this prayer.
He's a funny one, my preemptively grateful optimist.

~ ~ ~

And also pretty easily diverted, too.  As we got ready to follow my after dinner plans for him (a bath), Landon asked me, "Where's the Coke?  Please I make a soda?"

"Do you want to play with the funnels in the bath?" I asked, confused.

"No, you said we could make a soda in the bath."

Ahhh...yes.  I had said we needed to put baking soda in the bath.

Now I get why bath time had seemed a more intriguing option than a movie.

~~~

Remember Three Ways to Unravel in which I mentioned the tribulation we also call bedtime?
I caught a glimpse of light at the end of that tunnel.
Tonight, in the middle of a game he was playing, Landon abruptly stopped and said, "Please I go to bed now?" and grabbed his bear and snuggled into bed.

And that was that.

I sure am crazy about that kid.

It's the Little Things

If I am to stay true to one of the original reasons I started this blog, it's only proper that I write about the little moments in my little family that I'd like to remember.  Not because I think that the world will think them priceless, (although there is something unifying in our shared experiences) but because down the road, I know I will.  Why I capture them here instead of a spiral bound notebook somewhere is a mystery for another time.

Milestone reached (yesterday): Landon's first pee in the toilet.  It was epic.  At least, for Landon.  The look of sheer amazed delight when he looked up at me was the part I want to remember.  And then he was off to the races as he ran his little naked butt all around the upstairs declaring his accomplishment.  He was so excited, I think it took an extra hour to go to bed tonight.  "I'm ready for my pull-ups!" he announced.  I'm not sure how he gained this insight, seeing as we don't have any pull-ups in the house and haven't been talking about them.

All in all, on a day I spent mostly in bed, still recovering from wisdom-teeth extraction and random liver problems, it was really nice to end on such a good note.

My True Colors While on Drugs

I was a little nervous about what I might say when coming out of anesthesia after the wisdom teeth extraction.  Something embarrassing, perhaps?

The surgery went well, but my mom was beginning to wonder why it was taking so long.  Finally a nurse came out and told her, "She is doing well, but everytime we ask her if she is ready to go she asks, 'Can I just have five more minutes?'"

A sleep that deep, is it any wonder my standard line would rise to the surface?  

When Bill heard that, all he could say was, "That's my Jode." 

At least I had no deep dark secret to reveal in my semi-coherent state.

Unless you didn't already know that I am decidedly not a morning person.

How I Became a Pirate

This may not make sense,  but sometimes thinking about what something is like is more illuminating to me than thinking about it directly.

So I'm a huge fan of figurative language.  Metaphors and Similes, you run around with flashlights in my head and help me see things for what they are....by using pictures of what they are not.


I work for a start-up.  Sure, the library as a district has been around for years, but it launched on a remarkable trajectory of change just a few years ago to reinvent itself.  Seismic paradigm shifts...and so the reinvention process feels no different than if we had started from scratch.

Here is a metaphor that sheds light on what it is like to work for a start-up:

We are crew sailing a ship....

that is still being built.
So while some frantically row, others feverishly build, still others frenetically bail.

Sometimes below deck, we can get frustrated with the captain.  She seems so calm, so steady.  We may wonder if she is aware of just how hard we're working to make this all work.
But somebody has to keep an eye on the map, the stars, the horizon.  Somebody has to  have vision for where we're going and how we're going to get there.
Otherwise we're just spinning our wheels.
Or our oars, in this case.
But there's treasure to be had in this wild blue beyond: the love and loyalty of a community made better for having a library.  A hundred human connections that build, bridge, and nourish our souls.   The opportunity to contribute to the lives of countless people in meaningful and memorable ways. Not to mention the tangible parts of our library collection that bring the treasure of the world into the hands of  anyone who enters.  For free.  No buried booty at a library.  It lines every shelf.


So we sail.  Tweaking and repairing and scrambling all the way.  And when we get to the end of this map, we'll sail off the edge and come back and tell you what we found. 

Who knew I would be up for a journey that pushes and pulls and asks me to grow or grow weary, but so it is. 

I signed up to be a librarian.
And found out I might really be a seafaring maverick instead.

As it turns out, we all work for start-ups. Our very lives are an invention and reinvention of ourselves-sometimes from scratch. We all make paradigm shifts of epic proportions, live without all the answers, make repairs and improvements and sail ever on.

Let's go up on deck for a moment; let the evening crew take over the oars.  I want us to feel the winds of change in our faces and dream of what is just beyond.

Underwear

We three were lying in bed with Landon in the middle.  I was reading a joke book that was making me laugh every so often.  Eventually, Landon poked his nose in it to see what was so funny.  Wanting so much to be a part of things, he pretended to read, "Underwear. Underwear. Underwear," and then glanced at me sideways to see if his funniest word would have the desired effect.

I can hear Captain Underpants giggling in the distant future.  He knows he's got another reader coming his way.

But who am I to complain?  Am I not the mom who just let him run around with a diaper on his head a few weeks ago?

Yep, that's my child.