Saturday, September 06, 2008

Do I Fit?

Let me begin with some amusing quotes from the McDowell house:

Judah was wearing what they call the "fancy socks". They are hot pink, fuzzy foot-coverings (I don't dare call them real socks) that go up to his knees if not farther. Suzy called him a Wookie-in-training and Judah goes, "Wookie?! What's wookie means?" Don't worry, young Padewan, you will learn in time.

Sometimes I'll just be walking randomly and Judah will run away from me. I still have a hard time figuring out whether he means it or not, because he'll often yell "No!" or "Da-ah-aaadddy!" as I hold him down with tickles or kisses, but he has the most adorable smile painted on his face with his little dimples screaming "I'm cute! I'm cute!" So, yesterday I was walking down the hallway, looking down at my planner, when I glance up, meet eyes with Judah and he says "No! Don't pick me up!" then turns around and hightails it down the hallway. I dutifully followed and tackled him.

So, onto matter Numero Dos. You know that awkward stage where a kid has really long legs and arms, and they just can't seem to control them? That famous stage of growth that defines the word gangly as limbs are just kind of everywhere all the time, but nowhere every time they need to be somewhere?

Sometimes I feel like that. Don't mistake me, I'm plenty big enough for all of my limbs (even though I have been called "all leg" due to my long, long appendages). I mean this description of myself to be true more in the social graces side of things. There are three things I've found that point me to this general conclusion:
  • I dream of the day (and it is very much not today) where I have the perfect things to say. Like, whatever group I'm with or whoever is talking to me...sometimes it's just plain responses to questions, or saying entertaining things at the right time (that's a biggie for me)...sometimes it's actually advising someone or trying to help them with problems they're dealing with or are discouraged about. When I've gotten discontented with myself in this area recently, I've decided that I really just need to grow into it, and be okay with where I am now.
  • Next, there's this state of elegance issue. I want to be that elegant lady/girl/person who just has that air about her. This may or may not be slightly silly in some aspects of its aspiration.
  • Lastly, there is this deal of always injuring myself. Remember that time I stepped on the glass while cleaning the bathroom? The river of blood... that one. Then there's how the other night I felt a pain on the back of my heel while I was driving, reached down to rub it, and when my fingers came up, they had blood on them. Where in the world did I scrape the back of my heel? (I'm guessing going out of a door or something). Lastly, while I was ironing the duvet cover I made last night, I pulled it up and felt the pin in the corner of the fabric stab my toe. Later I looked down to see the top of my toe covered in blood. I had not "jabbed" my toe...rather, I had pulled the pin across the tip, resulting in a cut the lenth of my toenail.

All this bumbling around and awkward situations that have a tendency to draw blood have led me to this feeling of having theoretical arms and legs that I am, indeed, still growing into.

I did take a step forward last night, however, as I successfull sewed a duvet cover for the baby duvet that will go in the crib. It took a while, with a lot of ironing and extraneous threads EVERYWHERE, but it did eventually get done, and I am quite happy.

1 comment:

Amy Rachel Peterson said...

You do fit, darling. Anybody who can sew a duvet cover, write so engagingly that her readers laugh out loud, and tackle a kid like Judah definitely FITS. As far as being elegant and perfectly spoken, don't desire it too much. "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord will be praised." The only real thing that makes a woman seem elegant and causes her to accidentally always say the right thing, is loving the people she is talking to. That doesn't mean you have to already know them...just love them because they were made by Jesus. It works :)