Stream of Consciousness

I let my mind run away from me several times today.  Election Day.  Sunday liquor sales.  A lawnmower leaving trails of black smoke and huffing and puffing for air as I pushed it along.  This picture Abby spotted in one of half a dozen toy magazines:

She dubbed it "a lovely bed".  That it is.  It's actually a lovely trundle bed for not one, but two dolls.  It costs $54.99 at Kmart.

That really got to me.

Especially because I was reminded of a photo-blog I saw on the NY Times back in August.

Where Children Sleep

If you're not in the mood to check it out, basically the photographer went all over the world and took a photo of both child and their living quarters, if living quarters were, in fact, available.  They ran the gambit from sad and sobering to over-the-top and excessive.

I'm guessing I know where America fits in when we're buying trundle beds for our kids' baby dolls at $54.99 a pop.  But before I digress down that path (again...)...

My mind got away from me as I watched Intervention on A&E this afternoon, mindlessly ironing months worth of clothes and trying not to burn my poking-out-belly, while listening to a two year old outright refusing to take a nap in her room.  As my sister so eloquently stated, people with "vanilla" lives like us react pretty strongly to shows like Intervention.  I guess she's right.

And after I voted, Sam worked late, and I was home with two precious kids who would so much rather be playing outside than helping me straighten the house after the sun went down too early and one precious child who was doing all she could just to stay awake thanks to no nap, my mind was just tired.

I think Abby could tell I was weary.  That's when she said this, "Want to hear a song that rocks?  No?  Well too bad."  And she and her shin-guard protected, flip-flop wearing legs jumped up on the fireplace stage in our living room and proceeded to sing "This song rocks!" at the top of her lungs, at which point Sarah and her flower couldn't help but join in.

It was the perfect combination of silly ridiculousness to snap me out of my nighttime funk this evening.

Whether they know it's their mission or not, it seems apparent to me that these goofy girls are on a quest to help me not take life too seriously.  Tonight, they succeeded.

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. -Heraclitus Of Ephesus