My Friday Five

Time to do some thanking for these blessings:

1. AJ no longer displays fits of crying and despair when I drop him off at daycare. I leave him in a highchair, ready for Cheerios (I think Cheerios ought to be paying me for all this free publicity), and he swings his little feet and happily observes the goings-on in his classroom. He'll even let me wave "bye-bye" without getting upset. This is a major feat and I'm so proud of him! And relieved. I love walking to my car and peering in the window to see him just watching his teacher and swapping morning babble/conversation with her.

2. Yesterday I finally got the (annoying) task of buying new carpet for our dining room finished. Now, several people have pointed out to me that new carpet + young child (not to mention dog) don't always add up right. And I know there are risks of muddy feet and spit-up involved. However, we are pretty sure the current carpet is mildew-y, and it refuses all the chemical fixes we have tried (well, admittedly we've only really tried one or two things)... it's just not worth messing with anymore. I don't want AJ sitting on, and rubbing his hands on, and rolling around on, years-old, leftover mildew from the previous owners. Yuck. Besides, new carpet will look nice and smell new. So there. I'm grateful. All that's left is scheduling it, and voila, happy new room.

3. I am privileged to be singing in a concert this weekend that I think will be fun for me and hopefully enjoyable for whatever audience shows up. If you're at all interested in choral music, please, for the love of Pete, go buy Morten Lauridsen's CD "Lux Aeterna" and listen to the first 5 tracks. Heaven on earth. In fact, it's used at conferences for the study of Near-Death Experiences; some claim it's the exact music you hear in heaven. I'm not kidding! Anyway, it's gorgeous and completely makes up for having to also sing Mozart's Missa Brevis (gag).

4. Lunch plans today with 2 girlfriends and I'm very glad we finally coordinated our schedules.

5. I'm grateful that DH's appointment with the doctor went extremely well yesterday.