Dora: Our Kind of Wisewoman

There was nothing noteworthy about today, but for some reason it struck me all throughout that I was completely happy with each moment.

I don't know if it was my meeting with our Realtor this morning to drop the price of our house below that which we paid for it. During the meeting I realized that if we didn't try very hard to sell our house this summer and fall, we might become stuck here when our lives changed in such a way to make serious progression a possibility (in other words, to build our dream home). Because Michigan's economy is depressing, and Detroit's struggles hit Northern Michigan -- many a wealthy Detroiter's summer home or getaway -- hard. And because the middle class in Northern Michigan is losing -- jobs and homes, namely. And because there are more than ONE HUNDRED HOUSES FOR SALE that are in our price range.

And after all of that negativity, after all of that shredding of the dollar signs we once saw when we purchased the house as an "investment," I just gave up and looked straight at my children. I was tired of feeling encumbered by the house, the market, the lack of homes to build and the weight of general housekeeping. I realized I had been looking at my children lately as tolerable, instead of enjoyable. And oh my gosh, they are like two little jumping beans of joy, and so today I just put out as much love as I could and tried to have twice the patience for slow-moving preschoolers and insistent toddlers. I'm not saying it worked all the time, but at least I was a better mom today than I was yesterday.

I think if I sat here awhile longer I could think of a better, more appropriate, less obvious way of saying that they are practically perfect in every way (to me), but it's late and there's still the kitchen to be cleaned. Today I received in the mail a book I made of my first year of blogging. It's not fancy; it's a journal in professional clothes. I wanted it for my girls, because I know I would love to read something similar of my mother's life when her children were small. It's only a softcover collection of most of my posts without pictures, but for its cover I put a collection of odd photos on it that may never end up in formal scrapbooks. Berit baking cupcakes, Marta wandering, a snow day that didn't end in frozen tears. On the back, under a smaller arrangement of photos, I wrote the quote "The happiest thing about being happy is being happy with you." I took this from one Dora the Explorer, from a song that gets lodged in my brain every other day and refuses to leave.

And today, with the spirit of simple joy I was feeling for my blessings of having two healthy daughters and having the opportunity to be with them every day, and offer them a good home, a good life, a good family, the book came in all of its imperfect accounting of their days and I could not have been more complete in my happiness with them. Because there is Just. Nothing. Better.