Pride and Joy

Pride...a word that can be both positive and negative.

It's what I feel when my kids do something awesome.

It's what I felt when I made these door hangers for less than half of the price of the one in the Gift Shop down the street.

It's also something that my husband and I both have too much of when it comes to apologizing to one another after an argument. Most of the time our apologies to one another are non-verbal, and his to me usually comes in a cup.  So yesterday, I got one tall order of "I still have no clue what the heck I did to make you go crazy yesterday, but I'm sorry, so drink this and get over it!"    
                                                                                                                          

What can I say...it works! And how do I apologize to him? Well--it's not Starbucks.  And right now, he's still waiting on one!  Every now and then I can bare to apologize via text message. I know it's wrong, but it's how I am. I promise I do pray about trying and being better at it.

Pride is something that my husband felt when he found my car keys.

And it's also something I have to swallow to tell you where...

IN MY PURSE!

I'm sure you are probably thinking..."Wow, what an idiot! Did you not look in there?" Well no, I did not!  In my defense, I did glance over the top of it, but I thought that there was absolutely no way that they could be in there.   Dustin drove my car to church, and I never saw him, sat by him, or talked to him until we walked out to the car and realized they were missing.

Even in the all out search party, one witness claims that she saw that the keys had fallen out of Dustin's pocket and were on the floor behind him while he was sitting in the choir loft.

He discovered my keys when he went into my purse looking for my insurance card yesterday morning.  He had to unzip my purse to get into it. I NEVER zip up my purse, so it is still a mystery as to how the stupid keys got into my purse, and I would really, really like for it to be solved, so that I do not have to feel like a complete moron when we tell the other members of the search party (that stayed for an hour after church was over looking for them) where we found them!

I also realized that my key chain is zebra and not leopard. Shows how much I pay attention!

And then there is Joy...

If you could only see the smirk that was on my husband's face when he discovered that the keys were in MY purse! And that smug grin reoccurred each time he told someone where he found them. He swears there was no smirk, but there was! You could tell it gave him great joy that the blame did not fall completely on him anymore.  And it would have given me great joy to smack that ridiculous smile off of his face!

Joy is also what I felt when I was stranded at home yesterday and got to sit and watch my babies play together.  This little girl loves her baby brother!

And even though she is constantly smothering him, he loves her too!

It thrills me to know how much she loves and cares about him. I know that her and her brother will be some of his biggest advocates and work hard to protect him when they get older.  Thinking about that also brings me great joy!

I also experienced joy when I got to spend the evening with a group of women that all had children with some sort of special need.  This is the second time that we have gotten together, and it was so refreshing to sit and talk to a group of women who truly understand many of the things that I think and feel.  A few of us mothers that have children with DS even stood outside in the parking lot for over an hour after the gathering was over just sharing our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams for our children's futures.  It felt so good.

Now, I am off to encounter another feeling of pride as I actually cook a meal for my family.  And I am sure it will bring my husband joy to know that his dinner is not coming out of a box, is not fast food, and is not from the gas station down the street!