Simple Pleasures

"Daddy, can I sleep on the floor?"

For weeks I'd get that question every night, and every night I'd give the same answer of no. When I look back, I'm not exactly sure why the answer was always no. It could've been as simple as how absurd the notion seemed to me. I mean, we have more beds than people in our house (by a nice margin at that)... and so I just couldn't understand the need or fascination with sleeping on the floor. Or perhaps I said no because I knew they'd likely stay up longer rolling around on the floor than they would in the bed... and by 8pm every night I only had one final mandate for the day: get the kids to sleep.

And so, my answer was, "No... not tonight, love."... and they'd respectfully say okay. And the next night, we'd rehearse the same script again. And again. And again. Relentless little buggers. Well, I guess their resilience paid off because eventually... even though they never questioned my answer  (such good kids... sometimes I lose scope)... I finally took the extra half a second to ask myself... well, why not?

And when no good reason came to mind, I finally said it: Sure! Why not! Sleep on the floor! And Naomi's face lit up like we were going to Disney World. And Jasmine joined her. And they both just laid there grinning. And I grinned back at them; somewhat feeling bad that I didn't say yes earlier... but also glad that I didn't miss the opportunity to let them indulge in such a simple pleasure. It won't be long before I am wishing they were kids again and still able to joy those little gems of happiness that money can't buy. I've gotta keep these priceless moments at the forefront of my mind as a reminder to let 'em have it. Because life is short. And our time with them is even shorter. Hooray for simple pleasures. May they hold on to them forever.

Naomi's Fifth

10 feet

Venesa found a surefire way to get me off the couch: Threaten to pay for something that I think I can do myself.  That's exactly what happened with swimming lessons this summer.  At a recent pool party, we watched every other kid fearlessly jump in the deep end of the pool, splash, play and carry on... while ours were stuck in the shallow end like quarantined ebola patients. After a conversation with another mom, she asked if she could sign the kids up for lessons.

You'll get no disagreement out of me that the J's are getting too big to be showing up to pool parties with inflatable arm rings and flotation devices.  Mind you, getting them to swim was actually a priority for us at some point (they both took lessons around two years ago)... but sometimes even the best intentions have no shot against the busyness of life. Yet and still, when Venesa said lessons... all I heard was a loud ca-ching in the background.. and so I asked her to give me a week or two before we discussed it again. Two trips to the Y and one backyard pool trip later, the J's are officially drown-proof. Free of charge.