He Had to See a Man About a Horse...

One thing I should probably never do (but I do it all the time anyway) is let myself keep dozing once Calvin wakes up in the morning. Because when he's left to his own devices, lots of things can happen. You've all heard about some of it here, particularly the times he's used the contents of his diaper to decorate the house (Poop-casso!).

He's got lots of other interests too. Some days he climbs up into the bathroom sinks in order to get into the cabinets way up high. He thinks he needs a shave, apparently, because that's where the disposable razors are, as high up as we can get them. Or if the mood strikes him, he might empty out a tube of hair gel or a bottle of hand lotion, that's always a real nice treat to wake up to.

Sometimes he just makes off with all the toothbrushes he can find or takes a footbath in the toilet and we get off easy, but you can't count on it.

So the morning in question, my eyes snapped open and my 6th, 7th, and 8th senses told me that the boy was up and ready for action. Better haul ass.

"Cal! Cal!!!! CAL!!!!" Room to room I go, mentally steeling myself for what could have happened in those 2 or 3 minutes I let myself go unconscious knowing full well he was up and around...bad mommy of special needs child, bad bad BAD!!!

But when I arrived in the master bathroom, what to my wondering eyes should appear but...wait for it, wait for it...

My son, sitting on the toilet bowl, pajama pants and diaper off, on the verge of doing the very thing you'd want him to do on the potty, and only on the potty. I'll let you fill in the blanks.

This means so many things. It means he had the urge and recognized what it was all about. It means he went with purpose into the bathroom for something other than a search and destroy mission. It means he had the cognitive wherewithal to take off all the clothes that needed to come off, right down to the diaper. And, maybe best of all, he knew to look at me with a little self-satisfied grin that said something exactly like, "Yeah, cool huh? I knew you'd be SO diggin this."

My reaction was exactly what you'd expect. I sat down on the floor next to him and cried, while I praised him to the moon and back about what a brilliant, beautiful, gorgeous, shining light of a genius he is. Grace came wandering in by and by, curious about what all the ruckus was about, and she got right into the thick of the celebration like I've come to expect of her. "WOW, Calvin! Yer doin it! Yer such a good boy, look how yer learnin! Mommy's eyes are just wet cuz she's happy, right Mommy?"

Right as rain, baby girl.

This latest experience has me thinking (there I go, thinking again). I get to experience pure, unbridled, unfettered, unencumbered joy without leaving my bathroom. I am so not kidding. I only say that I am so not kidding in order to be perfectly clear because I know I can be a little sarcastic, and I'm becoming increasingly aware as I continue to grow up that sometimes sarcasm has no place. Dorothy said it well just before she clicked those fabulous shoes together three times:

"If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I don't have to look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with."

I used to think that was a little wimpy of her. Come on, Dot, live a little! Your own backyard? In brown-and-white Kansas, seriously?!?!? What if Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn thought that way? Or what if Alice had said, so it's a talking white rabbit, big deal, ho hum, I think I'll just stay here with my boring sister and make my daisy chains and let someone else jump down that hole after him. What if Frodo had never left the shire, fer Chrissakes?!?! Horrendous!

Now I don't quite see it that way. Who gets to say which experiences are worth having and which ones aren't? Who gets to pick whose exploits are valid and whose are meaningless?

There are all kinds of adventures out here in wild and crazy real life, and all kinds of triumph, and all kinds of joy.

Here's to all of them.