There Was Hugging

There was love.  There was laughter and tickling and racing and running.  There was so much hugging.

There was love first thing in the morning, when FlapJilly hid in her mommy's neck, not wanting anything more than those arms around her small self, sheltering her from the world.  There was love later on, when the zoo was tiring and her daddy's shoulders were the only place she wanted to be.

There was love in the pool in the late afternoon sun, when her tiny arms and legs paddled furiously, alternately shouting Marco and Polo, pretending to close her eyes and squealing with delight when she was caught. 

I want to like something as much as FlapJilly liked the pool was Big Cuter's accurate assessment of the situation.

There was hide and seek.  Three year olds do not have highly developed skills in this arena; squeezing into a corner of the kitchen, lying silently under the ottoman in the living room, curling up beneath the dining room chairs, each choice left her open to capture and squealing and, of course, more hugging. 



There was more food than we could finish at more meals than I can remember.  There was bacon and then more bacon and then bacon for breakfast this morning. 

SIR posted a photo on Facebook from his happy place. 

There can never be too much bacon, he reminded me as he hugged me.

There can never be too many hugs.


There was following the labyrinth at the Redemptorist Center, as FlapJilly ran races through the traces, jumping over the small rocks that guided TBG and SIR and me in and out ever closer then ever further from our goal.  She placed a few of her grandpa's coins on the rock at the center, joining the small stones and other trinkets left by other passersby, and then asked for one of her goldfish crackers to leave as well. 

There were friends dropping by, hugging me in my kitchen, sharing stories and wine and bacon.  There was jumping on the bed and pushing her Mommy's doll carriage filled with her Mommy's Beanie Babies, before abandoning care-taking for the far more interesting task of crashing the Brio trains into one another, while the wooden bears ate the wooden piggies, before the small, blonde policeman put her grandma in jail.

It was the warmest Thanksgiving on record in so many, many ways.