Sweet Dreams

I’m one of those people who love having people over.  It’s just fun.

If you’re a first-timer to my house, I try and go the extra mile.  You know, I break out a dust rag.  If you’ve been to my house before, the only thing I can guarantee is that there will be dust, and it won’t be fresh dust.  Know what I mean?

I hope you take this as a sign that I love you enough to be completely comfortable with showing you my dirt.  I like to think of this as a positive thing, but not all my guests may agree.

If you’re family, things go way down hill.

I’m sorry for that, I really am; however, there’s this unspoken agreement between family that says you’re stuck with me, so why should I even try and hide my dirt.  That’s the blessing of family – no pretending, no putting on a good show.  You get to be all of you, all the time – the good and bad, dirty and clean.

We had family come visit for the past two weekends.  It was awesome.  My niece even spent the week with us.

The first weekend my brother-in-law and his fiancé came up, I pulled out the extra blankets.  The nights were a bit cool.  One night we even dragged a pile of blankets and jackets outside to make S’mores.

I was storing these extra blankets in my daughter’s closet.  Like in many old houses, we don’t have a lot of closets.  People didn’t have junk (or apparently extra blankets) in the olden days, so they didn’t bother with closets.  That’s great and good, but now we live in junkville and a few closets, especially downstairs would be totally awesome.

When I pulled the stack of blankets from my daughter’s closet, I asked, “These are clean, aren’t they?”

Perhaps I should explain.

My daughter likes to nest.  She’s part tween, part big bird.  She makes piles of everything fabric – cushions, pillows, blankets – and plops herself down in the center.  Sometimes, when I go check on her at night, I can’t find her in her room.  She’s buried in a pile.  I could fight her nesting instincts for the sake or order and a clean house, but I don’t like ruffle feathers.  (Tell me you got that pun, please, because I cracked myself up.)

She assured me the blankets were clean.  She said she hadn’t used them.

The next morning, my future sister-in-law said she woke up to something kinda sticky stuck to her leg.  She reached for her glasses and pulled the blanket back.  There was a lollipop, half-sucked, stuck inside the blanket.  It’s like my daughter was licking away one night in her little nest and fell asleep mid-lick.  Then the blanket got folded and put back in the closet.

I asked her if it was clean!

The good news is, of all the sticky things that can end up stuck to your leg at night, a lollipop really isn’t so bad.  Besides, it makes for sweet dreams.