I’m grateful for…

• A husband who is much kinder to me than I am to him. His new thing? Talking to August about how important it is to tell me I’m beautiful. So this is what my kid now says to me on a regular basis: “Mommy, I love you. You’re beautiful.” Or, “Look at your beautiful dress!” whenever he sees me in my prego nightgown with orange flowers. Ahhh. I can survive with that little voice loving me.

• Fire. That is, my son loves fire: rocket fire, cars that go so fast they make fire, and volcano fire (we just cleared the neighborhood library of all volcano books available and he constantly wants to watch the National Geographic documentary on volcanoes and volcanologists). Tonight at dinner: “Mommy, I think we could get rocket fire and put it in the ketchup bottle and it would be a special treat.” Me: “Yeah, but would it taste good? I mean it’d be really hot.” August: “I think it’d be kinda good, like fire! It’d be hot. But kinda good. Tell a story about that.”

• A quiet night following a quiet day.

• A new episode of Glee! (I haven’t seen it yet…I’m watching it as soon as this gets posted.)

• Peeing in the potty (not me, but the boy). It’s happening! Steady wins the race…

• A picnic at the park with friends on Sunday, even though I was such a ravenous mama that I ate all my food, August’s food, and whatever our friends would let me steal from their plates. Sorry.

• Community…dear friends who have volunteered to watch August when I go into labor.

• Antibiotics…Round 3!!! It’s going to work this time, people. And then I promise I’ll stop complaining. I promise.

• Still being able to reach my toenails this morning when I painted my toes. Let’s be thankful for what really matters.

• That in spite of my past few weeks of complaints and discomfort and sickness and meanness to my man and boy, I’m still loved by a God who works in the midst of contradictions. I’m weak but he is strong. I’m selfish but he is generous. I’m at home teaching my kid to pee in a toilet but he is redeeming and healing the world. And somehow, because Christ is all those things, I am not lost in the smallness and brokenness of my own life. I’m grafted in to all the beauty. Thankful, thankful, thankful.

What about you?