Love...The greatest challenge of them all

Our blog challenge for today is to talk about love. Should be pretty easy right? But I actually sat down to write and came up blank. There's so many things that I love. Starbucks coffees, my friends, my family, my kitty-cats, anime, a good book, twix bars, a cozy night in with my hubby, snow, fireplaces....there's just too many to list. I had no idea which to pick from. And then I read Shelley's blog posting ( http://shelleyssilverlining.blogspot.com/ ) and it got me thinking-we do use love way to easily. We casually throw it here or exclaim it there. "I love coffee!" "I love ice cream." "I loved that movie." "I'm in love with (insert pop idol here)." But none of it really means much. Its simply a way of expressing ones feelings. But Love is supposed to be reserved for more intimate feelings. Feelings you'd only share with your Husband/Wife or you children. And most people will tell every boyfriend/girlfriend they've ever been with and ever will be with that they love them, only to break up weeks later. Now granted that it maybe the other parties wanting the separation, but if you can recover from the feelings, then its not TRUE love. What happened to the days when a married couple stayed married because they loved each other? And when one passes, they don't go find themselves another lover. They stay devoted and faithful even after death. And really I think that's what love is. Its a bond, a connection between two people that cant ever be broken. I feel I have this connection with my mom. We've survived some tough times and bad choices and we're still extremely close. I want my kids to feel the same way about me. And its not a given thing just because you're family. Its something you have to earn, something you have to work for. And when you have it, its something you cherish. I don't love my children, I cherish them. Same as my husband and my mom and my brother and my cousins and my grandmother. These are people in my life that if something were to happen to them, I would be devastated. And the pain of losing one of them, wouldn't just go away in a matter of weeks. They're irreplaceable! Now everyone must depart from this existance eventually, but when they do, I'll still feel the same way about them. I'll still cherish them and the times we've spent together. And that is TRUE LOVE.

The Disappearing Act

Monday after I put Doodle down for her nap I thought I'd sit and check my e-mail and play a few computer games while sipping my coffee and enjoying a few mint oreo cookies. So fast forward a few minutes, I'm now at the computer, coffee in hand and half a cookie shoved into my mouth. THUMP THUMP THUMP "hi mama" comes the small voice at the bedroom door.
SIGH there goes my personal time. "yum yum" says the little voice coming from my daughter who has now positioned herself at my elbow and is pointing at my plate with 2 cookies on it.
"no no" I say. " you can have some after you take a real nap. Would you like to go take a nap now, so you can have a cookie when you get up?" Her little head shakes no quite meaningfully. And she scampers off to play with her toys. I quickly think I'll finish up and then put her back down for her nap. A few more minutes go by and I hear a gleeful laughter behind me. Wondering what she finds so funny, I turn to see my daughter trying to change my son's diaper. OH GOSH! So I gently tell her that only mommy does this, but I figure that since she's gone through the trouble I might as well; its probably time to anyways. Fast forward to mid-diaper change and I ask Serenity to bring me my hair tie. I look over at the table just in time to see a small hand grab my LAST cookie and run from the room. My little girl all full of smiles and giggles. Now if you remember correctly, there were 2 cookies left when she came into the room. And now, there's no cookies on my plate.
She swore up and down that she only had 1 cookie. It remains a mystery to this day what happened to that other cookie. But I have a pretty good idea what might have happened to it :)