Picky, Picky

We don't get to pick out all the good stuff in life, like my kids pick the pineapple off the pizza, and the carrots out their salad. Dinner, for example. Three kids with stuffy noses chomping and smacking and talking. I could market it as a weight loss program because I eat 50% less every time I let myself listen. And I can't do anything about it. The noses came with their faces and if I tell them to chew with their mouths closed they'll asphyxiate.

Today, though, I was watching the Two Year Old chew. Because I wasn't sitting right next to him, I couldn't hear any gross mastication noises (which is one of my least favorite words, which is why I used it because it's one of my least favorite sounds). His little peach cheeks were happily stuffed and he must have been able to breathe through his nose because his lips were mooshed together like a little strawberry bouncing up and down above his chin that makes you pinch it.
Chew,chew, chew.

I got 31-flavors of happy. Because I love his face. Because he had healthy food in his mouth on the way to his stomach. Because he saw me watching him and started laughing and showed me the healthy chewed food. Because I know in a matter of months it won't be cute to watch him eat anymore. There is some line of demarcation when a child's mouth and drool and general body functions change and become suddenly disgusting, whereas before they had the pixie-dust of babyhood sprinkled upon them that made them somehow a gift. And because I took the moment, grabbed hold of it and appreciated it's brevity, which I don't always do. *small victory!*

So pick the pineapple off your pizza, is the point I'm trying to make. Maybe the trick in this life is to stand back a little, where you can't hear the slurping. Plug your ears when the whiny voices are nagging and just look at that face, how it has you in it, but this little person with strong opinions is NOT you. Amazing! Cover your eyes when you see that mutilated roll of toilet paper streaming down the hall behind a half-naked, crazed caveman in a bulging diaper, and just listen to the sound of the laughter for a second. And I mean a second, 'cause he's headed for the potted plants.