Responding to a fellow blogger's post, which quoted a passage on finding the everyday pleasures in parenting, my sweet husband Leighton left this most beautiful comment:
"I paused as I walked out the door today, partly to catch my breath before heading out into another hectic world of work. But also to watch as my daughter flung Play-Doh across the kitchen, snot running over onto her upper lip, a grin colored with the strange delight of acting carelessly when boredom and tiredness are just about to set in; and to watch as my wife washed the dishes after lunch, gearing down into an early afternoon routine intended to lull our daughter into naptime and free up time for her own sanity, knowing however that this doesn't always work and the next five hours might be the most trying in her life, preparing. This was my parenting pleasure, an inward smile in my mind, because I have the privilege of sharing these moments everyday with the two people I love most. Moments that mean something for me alone but somehow connect me with most every person, does that make any sense?"
Here's the quote that inspired him (from Marley and Me
by John Grogan):
"They {the kids} defined our life now, and while parts of us missed the leisurely vacations, lazy Saturdays reading novels, and romantic dinners that lingered late into the night, we had come to find our pleasures in new ways- in spilled applesauce and tiny nose prints on windowpanes and the soft symphony of bare feet padding down the hallway at dawn. Even on the worst days, we usually managed to find something to smile over, knowing by now what every parent sooner or later figures out, that these wondrous days of early parenthood- of diapered bottoms and first teeth and incomprehensible jabber- are but a brilliant, brief flash in the vastness of an otherwise ordinary lifetime." (185-86) 
Great quotes! My sons first movie he ever watched all the way through was not a cartoon! It was Marley & Me. I have to read that book. I didn't know what an eloquant writer his is. It's all so true!
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting! For our Lilly at 20 months, this was the first film not geared to children that she just absolutely loved! I remember Leighton and I just loving watching that film with her on a Friday night because we actually got to focus on the film because she did too. She kept asking to see it over and over after that, ditching all the Baby Einstein films that she'd loved up until Marley & Me. Now she's approaching three and still talks about "Marley" though we haven't seen the film since back then. She's named one of her puppy dolls Marley.
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