Morning minus = the smell of very burnt toast waking me up
Morning plus = my daughter’s big brown eyes peering brightly at me over the edge of my pillow
Back in the day when I was firmly in the never-having-children camp, I had a big long list of reasons Why Not To Have Kids. And when things would come up, I would label them: seeing someone’s kid acting up in public: Reason #121 Why Not To Have Kids, crying baby: Reason #42 Why Not to Have Kids. I used to joke that until my list of reasons FOR having kids was as long as my list of reasons for NOT having them, I couldn’t conscientiously change my mind. One of the few items on my FOR list was: getting to share much-loved books with my children.
This morning, while drying my hair, I suddenly realized that the noise of voices coming from the playroom was my 5.5-year-old son reading to his sister on the sofa under the windows. When I leaned my head out of the bathroom to see, Martin looked up at me and a huge smile broke over his face, and he said, “Mama, I’m reading!”
Nice to think that particular reason cancels out so many of the ones on the AGAINST list.
Even if the book he was reading was “Tilda and the Chocolateball Troll.”
On another note, I seem to be in a very joyful mood the past few days. Probably the wonderful weather which gives me reason to sing. Driving home last night at 10 p.m., it was getting dark and the sky was a very particular shade of cobalt that seemed endless. I could see for miles coming down the hill from Lund. Swedish summers, when they’re of the warm variety, are marvelous.