"Look Mom, you made maxi-pad ears!"

Could it be any better than this?
My cherubic Aidan circa 2003 with his blankee,
his train set, his dairy reminder, and his tiger bed.
(One of the pics we found tonight.)

Most hours of most days I'm working, cooking, driving, sleeping (attempting), lecturing (my kids), shopping (for food), or otherwise thinking of all the things I wish I were accomplishing.

Or I'm sitting at a desk with my head in the computer, researching, writing, researching, editing, researching, researching, researching. All for the sake of funding non-profit programs. (Aka, bleeding heart.)

Lather, rinse, repeat. You get the picture.

Today I found out that a classmate was accepted to teach English on the Peace Boat. The Peace Boat! It's a big ship that floats around the world and teaches about love and understanding. (She's a great writer, you can read about it here.) She writes about her struggle to find her own way while living in Japan due her husband's military job: ". . . a little teaching here, a little editing there. But I was still on the hunt for something more. Then late one night in February, I found it. I don’t even know what search terms I used -- Japan, teaching, NGO – that helped me stumble upon the webpage, but I knew instantly, the way my heart warmed, and everything slowed, that this was it: a humanitarian NGO that runs peace and social justice advocacy voyages around the world looking for volunteer English teachers? Yes, please!"

Yes, while her husband is on a war ship, she'll be on a peace boat. That's how she ends her post. I love it.

I want to go on a peace boat. To be honest I kind of felt jealous -- in the one minute or so that I had today to read her post and consider a vast ocean and a big sky and the whole world ahead. But feeling jealous is silly, I know. I've got kids, for one thing. I've got my life. I'm not floating around the globe, but I've got my little wonders of joy at home.

I forgot about the peace boat and proceeded with my evening -- driving, cooking, etc, etc. Somehow I ended up looking at old family pictures (if you call ten years ago old) that Amanda has collected. As for myself, I'm terrible at organizing family pictures because of all the things mentioned in the first paragraph in this post. However, evidently, my child has been secretly collating pictures into boxes, piles, and photo albums. She wanted me to look at them with her tonight. It was the night I had designated to re-initiate my yoga practise -- but when your 16-year-old daughter wants to relive old family pictures, what choice is there?

The picture that really got to us was the time I created a horrific sheep costume for her for some occasion, maybe it was school or church. It was probably supposed to look like a sweet little lamb, but instead the brown paper sack with black permanent marker eyes and whiskers looks like a serial killer lamb. White cotton balls made up the skull of the mask -- terrifying. I have no idea what I was thinking. Psycho mom. But the thing that made us laugh were the ears.

"Look Mom, you made maxi-pad ears!" exclaimed Amanda. I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen the evidence in a real photograph. I pulled the snapshot close to my bespeckled eyes. Sure enough. There they were -- lambs ears made of Kotex panty liners. I did that for my kid. Usually, I do not laugh. I am sorely short in my laughter. I am far too serious and really need to figure out how to see the funny side of things. But tonight, I forgot about my yearning for the peace boat and laughed like I'd hadn't for years. I laughed at that ridiculous lamb mask I made with the maxi-pad ears. The girl and I both laughed. The girl was in shock that I was laughing. She laughed because I laughed.

As children are lost under the rubbish in Oklahoma, my teenage daughter and I laughed until sound did not come out of our mouths. As a community in Iowa searches for a kidnapped little girl, my teenage daughter and I laughed until our guts rumbled. As parents grieve all over this planet for every reason you can't imagine, my teenage daughter and I laughed until our eyes watered.

"Mom, I don't think I've ever seen you laugh like that," said my teenage daughter. She's right. I haven't laughed like that for a very long time. But I should. I'm not on the peace boat, but I've got my babies and they are charmed and charming and cherubic and here with me. What else could I want? Seriously, what else?

Thanks for coming over to my blog.

With love from yours truly,

Natural Born Bleeding Heart