Tender Mercies

Nie Nie and CJane talk about tender mercies a lot, which is where I first heard the term. I love it and think of this concept often: those small bits of shiny-ness in otherwise very awful days.

Like, this weekend, while I lay in stomach bug misery on the couch, Lee was reading Mary Bullock You're All My Favorites, and my baby started calling me Mommy Beaw [Mommy Bear, if you pronounce your r's]. I heard her calling me down the hall as she ran over to pat my head. Mommy Beaw! Moooommy Beaw!

Possibly the sweetest words I've ever heard. 

Then today, after a long, tedious day of entertaining a too-sick-to-go-to-school but not-sick-enough-to-notice-she's-still-sick baby, this:

Which, if you're wondering, and you probably are, is Mary Bullock wearing the following:

One Pajama top
Next year's tankini top, with tags
One ERNIE diaper
One pair of Big Girl Panties
Next year's tankini bottom
ANOTHER pair of Big Girl Panties, for kicks.

Because she likes to try on clothes. All at once. And then she sassed me with her eyelids. TWICE. Which made us both giggle after a long, tedious, poopy-diaper day. I know that maybe there are parents who wake up one day to punk ten year olds who probably also laughed when their two year olds sassed them with their eyelids, but today I did not care.

Eyelids, sass, 14 layers of inappropriate clothing: tender mercies.