Hey there.
I'm in the midst of reorganizing/cleaning the kids' rooms. I'm also in the midst of wondering if my kids perhaps might be future hoarders. In going through their drawers, I'm finding Happy Meal Toys made of characters from movies that came out years and years ago. These toys do nothing. They do not sing, dance, move, bend, teach, or entertain in any way. However, toss it into the garbage pile, and my children will immediately begin howling and insisting that this rodent figurine from Ratatouille is indeed, one of their favorite toys, and yes they do play with him! and do we have to throw it out? Then I say "Guys, you have to acknowledge when it is that the addiction is talking. And when it is talking to you, you can talk back to it." (I learned that from watching Hoarders. Thank you, TLC for the psuedo psych degree.)
Then they say, "Huh?"
And I say, "Never mind. It goes in the garbage."
And they say, "Wah, wah, whine, whine, whine, meanest mom ever, blah blah blah."
And I say, "FINE! You can keep it."
Then I wait for them to go to school and I throw it out anyway. And as I slam the lid on the garbage can, I yell "SUCKAs!"
And then I am smugly satisfied.
Anyway. (Would you believe that I actually sat down to write a kind of thoughtful, reflective post? Never woulda guessed from that intro, right?)
The reason we're cleaning and organizing is because Roo is getting her big girl bed. The crib that has occupied our home and slept our 3 littles for the last 8 years in getting moved to the garage and put on Craigslist. Don't worry. I'm not going to get sentimental to you guys about that. I am though, going to get a little weepy though about these pants:
These are Roo's Happy Pants. That's what she calls them. I'd say that you def have to be of the 5 and under set to pull this look off. What do you think? To be honest, if I was speaking purely through the mommy goggles, I could in fact go on and on about how well she pulled off this look- how cute her little legs and butt were all wrapped up tight in the stretchy smiley faces- but I'll spare you that. I do however, want to tell you why even though she doesn't fit into these leggings anymore, I'm planning on keeping them forever and ever.
You know how your kids go through different phases- some you remember fondly and some you'd rather forget? Like, maybe you'll cherish how your child used to ask "Mama, can I hold you?" when they wanted to be picked up, but you'd rather forget the phase when they wanted to experiment with the idea that maybe poo and chocolate carried other similarities besides color?
(I'm not speaking personally. Just throwing random ideas out there.)
Anyway, this "happy pants" phase with Roo is one that I want to remember. First of all, she named them the Happy Pants all by herself. No one thought of that for her. The first time I heard her call them that this bubble of delighted laughter just rose up in me right from my gut. I love that she came up with that. And when she put them on, she became.....well, happy! She just loved the way she felt and looked in those pants and so she ran with it. It was pretty inspiring to see.
While watching her strut around in her happy pants, it occurred to me that this was one of those idyllic moments where your kids teach you something, rather then the other way around. When was the last time just putting on a certain item of clothing made me feel like I could conquer the world? I mean yes, us adults tend to rely our inner sense of self for confidence rather than a piece of clothing BUT..... sometimes a good pair of happy pants can point you in the right direction. And really, it doesn't even really have to be a pair of pants per say. It could be anything. Like this, for example (this clip makes me laugh everytime I see it):
See? If you're Amy Farah Fowler, a tiara=happy pants. If you're me, then I don't know.... now I'm rethinking this whole post because I'm realizing that I don't necessarily want a piece of clothing to make me happy. For me, I think true happiness would come if I could only do karate kicks anywhere in public at anytime I want. Not on people- just into the air and stuff. Like, if I could hi-ya around while in line at Target and the bank? I think that'd bring me a lot of joy.
Allright, I know that I'm just getting silly. But my point is that we should all spend a little bit of time thinking about what made us happy when we were kids and ask ourselves why we don't do it anymore. If the answer is "because society would think us crazy", then I think we should take a lesson from Jimmy Buffet, who himself seems like a pretty relaxed and happy guy. He says- "If we weren't all crazy, then we would go insane."
By the way, out of curiousity, what would your happy pants be?
I'm in the midst of reorganizing/cleaning the kids' rooms. I'm also in the midst of wondering if my kids perhaps might be future hoarders. In going through their drawers, I'm finding Happy Meal Toys made of characters from movies that came out years and years ago. These toys do nothing. They do not sing, dance, move, bend, teach, or entertain in any way. However, toss it into the garbage pile, and my children will immediately begin howling and insisting that this rodent figurine from Ratatouille is indeed, one of their favorite toys, and yes they do play with him! and do we have to throw it out? Then I say "Guys, you have to acknowledge when it is that the addiction is talking. And when it is talking to you, you can talk back to it." (I learned that from watching Hoarders. Thank you, TLC for the psuedo psych degree.)
Then they say, "Huh?"
And I say, "Never mind. It goes in the garbage."
And they say, "Wah, wah, whine, whine, whine, meanest mom ever, blah blah blah."
And I say, "FINE! You can keep it."
Then I wait for them to go to school and I throw it out anyway. And as I slam the lid on the garbage can, I yell "SUCKAs!"
And then I am smugly satisfied.
Anyway. (Would you believe that I actually sat down to write a kind of thoughtful, reflective post? Never woulda guessed from that intro, right?)
The reason we're cleaning and organizing is because Roo is getting her big girl bed. The crib that has occupied our home and slept our 3 littles for the last 8 years in getting moved to the garage and put on Craigslist. Don't worry. I'm not going to get sentimental to you guys about that. I am though, going to get a little weepy though about these pants:
These are Roo's Happy Pants. That's what she calls them. I'd say that you def have to be of the 5 and under set to pull this look off. What do you think? To be honest, if I was speaking purely through the mommy goggles, I could in fact go on and on about how well she pulled off this look- how cute her little legs and butt were all wrapped up tight in the stretchy smiley faces- but I'll spare you that. I do however, want to tell you why even though she doesn't fit into these leggings anymore, I'm planning on keeping them forever and ever.
You know how your kids go through different phases- some you remember fondly and some you'd rather forget? Like, maybe you'll cherish how your child used to ask "Mama, can I hold you?" when they wanted to be picked up, but you'd rather forget the phase when they wanted to experiment with the idea that maybe poo and chocolate carried other similarities besides color?
(I'm not speaking personally. Just throwing random ideas out there.)
Anyway, this "happy pants" phase with Roo is one that I want to remember. First of all, she named them the Happy Pants all by herself. No one thought of that for her. The first time I heard her call them that this bubble of delighted laughter just rose up in me right from my gut. I love that she came up with that. And when she put them on, she became.....well, happy! She just loved the way she felt and looked in those pants and so she ran with it. It was pretty inspiring to see.
While watching her strut around in her happy pants, it occurred to me that this was one of those idyllic moments where your kids teach you something, rather then the other way around. When was the last time just putting on a certain item of clothing made me feel like I could conquer the world? I mean yes, us adults tend to rely our inner sense of self for confidence rather than a piece of clothing BUT..... sometimes a good pair of happy pants can point you in the right direction. And really, it doesn't even really have to be a pair of pants per say. It could be anything. Like this, for example (this clip makes me laugh everytime I see it):
See? If you're Amy Farah Fowler, a tiara=happy pants. If you're me, then I don't know.... now I'm rethinking this whole post because I'm realizing that I don't necessarily want a piece of clothing to make me happy. For me, I think true happiness would come if I could only do karate kicks anywhere in public at anytime I want. Not on people- just into the air and stuff. Like, if I could hi-ya around while in line at Target and the bank? I think that'd bring me a lot of joy.
Allright, I know that I'm just getting silly. But my point is that we should all spend a little bit of time thinking about what made us happy when we were kids and ask ourselves why we don't do it anymore. If the answer is "because society would think us crazy", then I think we should take a lesson from Jimmy Buffet, who himself seems like a pretty relaxed and happy guy. He says- "If we weren't all crazy, then we would go insane."
By the way, out of curiousity, what would your happy pants be?
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