Feeling the Joy

I am loving life right now. Loving how my little girl likes to take her animals and babies for walks all the way to town.  Loving how she stops, poses, and says, “Mama, take Nora’s picture, ‘kay?”  Then tells her monkey to smile.Loving how I still find her incredibly beautiful when she sleeps.  And how it’s one of the few times that I can look at her and really see that the tiny baby she was is still inside her toddler self.

I love when we have several days in a row of perfection — it completely makes up for the tough days or the little things in our life that aren’t yet the way we want them to be.  Days where everything just seems to click.  Like Saturday, when I almost didn’t go to the cranberry festival because of the $10 parking fee, went anyway at the very tail end, and it was free.  That worked out perfectly; the weather was amazing and the festival was wonderful. I love that. I love how much Nora enjoys things.  Watching her experience the world is a lesson in finding joy.  Children are lucky because they can live so much in the moment.  They don’t think about all the things they wish they had or less than pleasant things on the horizon.  They don’t fret about the past or the future.  Though it wouldn’t be good to be like that all the time, watching Nora reminds me how important are moments like that.  How sometimes we just need to stop and be.  We need to spend more time than might seem prudent feeding goats, petting sheep, marveling at wool, and riding tractors.  As many as possible for as long as possible.  I love that having a toddler makes me stop and do these things instead of trudging through life, head down.

I love the kindness of friends and giant bags of hand-me-down clothes.  Ridiculously cute hand-me-down clothes.

I love watching Nora acquire new skills.  I love how excited she gets to climb up her step stool, peel a (fair-trade!) banana, and slice it for herself.

I love stopping in to visit Chris at work.  I love how thrilled Nora is to see her Dada, and how amazing his food is. I love how excited he gets about making up specials and how passionate he is about his job.  I love seeing these beautiful plates he puts out, so professionally done, and thinking about how far he’s come since cooking in dorm kitchens.

I love that for the first time since we moved here, Chris is finally having two days off in a row.  Starting this week, he’ll be off on both Tuesday and Wednesday.  Which means tonight he actually felt like cooking at home.  A full Mexican spread with black beans, rice, roasted squash, and cheese enchiladas with a homemade sauce.  I shouldn’t have to tell you how much I loved that. 

It was the perfect ending to the perfect day, which, by the way, started with me sleeping in until 9:30, then going to an amazing 1.5 hour yoga class.  Oh, did I love that.

Yes, I am loving life right now.  Loving October, and taking a lesson from Nora’s book about finding joy.  It’s everywhere.

What are you loving right now?