Poor Little Big Boy

A gracious commentor (commentator?) mentioned that the happiness experiment followup showed that doing gratitude journaling once a week was sufficient for the exercise to 'work' so now I don't feel bad about not doing it every day.  And for that, I am truly grateful!

It's actually really hard to find time to blog and there's so many other things I'd rather share about than rack my brain for publicly appropriate content to be grateful for.

For example, today Judah had a really 'mature' conversation with me about how hard it is to be a big brother.

Judah (in a quiet, contemplative voice): Mommy, you know, it's really hard to be a big boy.
Me: Really?  Tell me something hard about being a big boy.
Judah: I have to be quiet all the time because Noah's napping.
Me: Yeah, that's hard.  What else?
Judah: I always have to watch him, make sure he doesn't get hurt.
Me: Yeah, that's hard.

This went on for a while as Judah listed typical big brother woes--having to share his toys, not getting mommy all to himself, enduring Noah messing up his spaceship creations, etc.

Being a little brother is no cakewalk either, apparently.

And then, because you can't just throw away such a perfect teachable moment when it falls right in your lap, I of course had to ask Judah what was great about being a big boy.

Judah's replies were pretty much 100% all about eating some form of chocolate--cake, candy, ice cream.

His gluttony issues aside, I so treasure these moments.  It's so rare when I feel like I'm actually interacting with Judah as a thoughtful human being (and not just a destructive, willful force of nature).  Kinda makes me wish I could just press a button and start the parenting process at age 4!