christmas joy, or not

john r., i will be forever grateful

you must watch this: elf dance

My boys have discovered Elmo. When Sesame Street comes on the TV, all I hear is "Elmo, Elmo, Elmo" for about 10 minutes, accompanied with crazed pointing and pleas for my attention. I'm honestly not sure what it is about Elmo that is so appealing to little kids. I find I like Grover and Cookie Monster the best. Elmo is quite cute though.
I wondered why my boys picked up "Elmo" as a vocabulary word when I can't even get them to say "milk". It didn't take me long to figure it out. Elmo speaks in the 3rd person. His grammar is awful (so is Cookie Monster's, but I give him a pass). We criticize athletes like Rickey Henderson, Bo Jackson, Chad Johnson and others for referring to themselves in the 3rd person, but Elmo, an educational character, is loved by children and parents alike. I don't get it. Except that he's so cuddly. Howie likes Elmo.

today is a sick day. there is nothing quite like it. not a sick day for me, but both my boys are running fevers. their grumpiness and irritability were incredibly frustrating yesterday until i discovered they were sick. i was grumpy and they were unbelievably annoying and whiny. last night, i got about 3 hours of sleep and am dragging today. needless to say, it's hard to be patient and understanding with 2 demanding boys and an extreme lack of sleep.

i am reminded how hard it is to be compassionate and empathetic. so often i can't put myself in someone's shoes and see life through their eyes. my boys are reminding me to do that today. it's much easier to have some empathy when you realize they must feel awful. it also makes me so thankful for how well they are handling being sick rather than how poorly they're handling feeling well.

i figured it was time to move onto a real blogging location, since my only experience was on myspace. hopefully, my 8 subscribers will follow me over here!