Rolling the Dice

When your kids are little you spend a lot of time on the floor. You shake rattles over their chubby cheeks as they wiggle on a crocheted blanket. You push colorful trains along a wooden track as your excited toddler yells, "Choo-choo". And you suffer through yet another round of  sleep-inducing adventures in a place called Candyland.

Looking back, I cherish every one of those moments (really, even the Candyland) I spent crawling around on the carpet with my kids. From the building blocks to the board games to the building of Lego masterpieces, I wouldn't trade a minute of that floor time, especially now that it's nearly impossible for me to get down there. And even more impossible for me to get back up.

But the other night, I made the effort. A late night knock on my door had me ditching the remote and finding a way to contort my arthritic knees into a semi-lotus position just long enough to play a couple of games of Yahtzee with my not-so-little boy.

Because no matter how old your kids are, when they want to play with you, you've got to make it happen

They Might Surprise You

I don't want to start spouting cliches or anything (I can hear you haters out there saying, "What is she talking about . . . start?") but that old saying of "being darkest before the dawn" feels like truth right now. Just when you're ready to throw your hands up in the air, believing that your kids will never get it; that they will never accept responsibility for their own lives and grow up, something miraculous happens. They blow you out of the water with a random act of kindness or they step up and show themselves to be the kind of amazing human beings you felt sure they were all along.

I'm convinced that God loves to mess with our heads; to give us one encouraging, uplifting day that makes us forget about a few of the other ones. And this one did. From my son's willingness to share information about a fact-finding mission at the local college to my daughter's unexpected generous offer to partially subsidize the cancelled cruise I so whiningly described in a previous blog, I found it hard to wipe the smile off my face.

In the days following, I've had several interesting (if not particularly long) conversations with my son about a wide-ranging set of subjects and a quick game of Yahtzee. I know, it doesn't sound like much but it sure beats what passed for our recent communication. And, as for my daughter, we didn't take her money (as much as I might have wanted to) but we did accept her promise to treat us to an anniversary splurge at one of the specialty restaurants whenever we reschedule that cruise. Surprisingly, she didn't even look remotely relieved when she returned the money to her purse.

Now, if I can get them to put their dishes in the dishwasher or pull the vacuum out of the closet once in awhile, I might not have anything else to write about.