Wonder. Ful.

We're having guests come through Friday evening, and we're going hiking with friends tomorrow. So today is the last full day I have to get the house ready.

I finished cleaning the bathroom while hearing shrieks of delight from the main part of the house.
"I'm so glad we have a dog he can play with, while the baby naps," I thought. Tigger's shrieks and laughs made me smile while I scrubbed.

I emerged from the bathroom to find him throwing handfuls of rice (from our 40lb bag) straight up into the air, and shrieking with delight as it all landed with pitter-pattering sounds everywhere in the kitchen. This had been going on for a while. Aside from a layer on the floor, there was rice all over the counter tops, inside the dog's water bowl, under the chest freezer, embedded in the throw rugs, ...grrr.

"Mama try?" he asked, wondering whether I was sad enough to "cry."

"That would be a lot better than what I want to do right now," I responded.

I gave him the dust pan and brush while I grabbed the broom, sternly enlisting his help to clean all the rice from the kitchen's various surfaces.
For a few minutes, he dutifully brushed my little piles of swept rice into the dust pan and deposited everything into the garbage can.
But then I watched him step into a pile and start swinging his feet backward, like a rabbit trying to run away from a tether. Essentially, he was using his heels to toss the rice in all directions again.

"Teee hee-hee!" he squealed.

A friend's recent Facebook status read something to this effect: "Whoever coined the phrase 'terrible two's' had no sense of wonder."

I don't know if, at this point in the story, I lost all sense of wonder, or just lost all my patience.

But I scooped Tigger into my arms, marched to his room, put him down there on the floor, and closed the door behind me as I walked out. I didn't care that his minor protests went silent 3 seconds after I left the room. There isn't that much he can do in his room.

After I cleaned the kitchen, I went and retrieved him from the bedroom. When he heard me coming, he quickly put away all the clothes he'd been removing from his dresser drawers.

Then, when he was sure that I wasn't going to "try," he asked for a hug.

And eventually, everything became wonderful again.

Mirror of my mind?

What does it say about me as a mother that my son is always singing the alphabet ...but doesn't even try to join in when we pray the Our Father at Mass?

If I begin to recite, "A...B...C..." he'll pick up where I left off. It's fun to listen to what letters he skips. Then as the weeks go by, I start to hear those letters, subtly added into the song. K, Q, and X were especially difficult. But he's begun to say "Tay" after "H,I,J." So it's coming.

He also doesn't know the Hail Mary.

I discussed this with Doo the other night, who assures me that he won't grow up to be heathen. He will learn.

But I still have to reflect on my personal habits, and wonder why the alphabet is more familiar to Tigger than basic prayers.

There's nothing like having a mirror of my shortcomings running around the house.