2/10/06

I've been acutely more aware of the silly names I call Ben, lately. Mainly because while standing in the parking lot at church yesterday, getting Ben out of his car seat, I heard at least a dozen moms addressing their children by their terms of endearment. This fact became evident: of all the names we call our kids, a vast majority of them are food products. In the few minutes I was standing there (I admit, after this epiphany hit me I stood for a bit longer than usual) I found myself making a mental list of all the names I heard moms affectionately calling their loved ones, starting with myself. When I opened the door to get Ben I said to him, "ready to go, pudding-pop?" (Ben is not made of chocolate, he's neither frozen nor on a stick, and yet that name suits him so well and I've called him that countless number of times.) Not ten seconds behind me I heard a mom to her child say, "ok, muffin, lets go."

The following is a brief list of what I heard, along with others I've used or have heard before...

-lamb chop, cream puff, turkey, sugar, sugar dumpling, dumpling, peaches and cream, strawberry shortcake (the lady two cars down from me called her little girl this, perhaps because of her strawberry colored hair.) pumpkin, honey, honey-cakes, cinnabuns and cookie.

Perhaps if we lovingly started referring to our kids as vegetables, maybe they'd be more inclined to eat them.

I think from now on I will say, "ready to go, my little ear-of-corn?"

Today I am so thankful for...

1. the adorable Valentine from the Abbott family with an even more adorable picture of Michael and Daniel in it.

2. all the trees and bushes and flowers that we looked at today and picked out for our new house.

3. an offer being made on another house Mark is selling in Ladera Ranch. This house was more difficult to sell, so if this offer gets accepted, what a huge answer to prayer that will be - for us and the current owners.

4. my mom coming down and taking Ben for a few hours. They had a great time together and I knew they would as I watched Ben wave bye-bye to me from the back of my mom's red-hot convertible. He had a blast!

5. walk/jogging 25 minutes today and feeling really good afterward. I jogged the first 7.5 minutes WITHOUT STOPPING! A new record for me. After that I was able to run 2-3 minutes then walk 1-2 minutes. I'm back in the game, friends!

6. God giving me a calm attitude this evening when Ben threw fit after fit because I wouldn't let him do whatever he wanted. I know it was God giving me that calm feeling because I am not capable of the feeling on my own.

7. feeling the sun on my shoulders and a cool breeze while I ran.

8. Mark having 5 days off starting tomorrow.

9. finding neat verses in the Bible to use in various ways, truly perfect words that will minister to me and others.

10. being able to get some stuff done that would've been pretty time consuming had Ben been with me instead of my mom. She was a huge blessing to me today. (and Ben too, I think he was sick of me.)