In his arms...

This morning has been a busy morning. Spring has given me a new spirit to "get shit done".

For example: the other day, for no apparent reason, I decided to paint the laundry room. You might be wondering why I chose the laundry room, when there are so many more important rooms to paint/decorate. The only reason: I already had everything I needed to do it. I had glossy white paint (to cover the pea green/yellow cabinets and touch up the trim), flat white paint (for the walls and ceiling), and a collection of other colors left over from other rooms in the house (to add an 'accent wall' behind the washer and dryer). So, probably two-three days ago now, I began painting this 4x5 (ish) sized room.

From previous painting experience, this should have taken 4-5 hours of one day... start to finish. But as I said, here we are days later... and it's still not done. I'm pretty sure I've spent just as much time cleaning brushes and setting up as I have actually painting.

This morning though, I woke up with the drive to finish it today. So, I throw on some old clothes, put Jude in his high chair, put breakfast on the tray and got to work. Well of course by the time I got the supplies back out, paint poured into the tray and washer moved out of the way, Jude was ready to get down. So, I stopped what I was doing, cleaned him up and made sure there wasn't anything he could get into - and set him free.

I thought for sure I'd need to stop at least a hundred times to redirect him from one object to another, but I was wrong. He played all by himself for a good 1.5 to 2 hours! I kept peeking out at him and he was just as busy as can be. He'd look up at me, smile and get right back to what he was doing. I'm pretty sure a good 30 minutes of this was spent with him crawling through my laundry pile.

Before long, I found a good stopping point and decided to put him down for a nap. I washed up and walk into the living room where he was busy playing a reached down for him. Then it happened. The best hug a mother could ever ask for. He wrapped his legs around me, held onto my neck a squeezed. After a good thirty seconds or so of squeezing, he let go, stuck his thumb in his mouth and cuddled close. Now, I've had plenty of Jude hugs before, but this one was just so special. Just when I thought to myself "look, he's perfectly fine playing all alone", he reassures me that "no, I still need you mom".

Ahh... the simple things in life.