Carson and the candy corn

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . December 3, 2010 . 11:36PM

Thanksgiving was ample opportunity for me to see my family in action. Holidays tend to brief out the best and worst in people, even the littlest ones. Perhaps the proper commentary on this is that the littlest ones recognize that, in the hub of activity among the adults, the opportunity for mischief is unbridled and they can get away with…well, anything. This past Thanksgiving was no exception and the littlest of my extended family were out in full force keeping the adults on their toes.

When people say it takes it a community to raise a child, they aren’t kidding. The main reason for this cliche being that children have the energy of ten adults at any given time and they can wear an adult down in the time it takes for one of them to throw an energizing temper tantrum. In a medium-sized home on a holiday, the nooks and crannies to hide in and do whatever your little heart desires are endless. Carson, my cousin’s son who is a new toddler, took this to full advantage.

It helps that when Carson smiles the adults in our family will give him whatever he wants.

During the day, each table in the house had a bowl of peanuts and candy corn resting upon it for guests to snack upon while waiting for a meal or recovering after a meal. There were plenty of these and they were refilled throughout the day. Carson discovered the bowls immediately upon entering the house and would sneak a tiny handful whenever no one was looking. At one point, my cousin Ashley noticed that something was wrong with Carson’s belly button.

It was orange.

He’d stuck a candy corn in there until he got hungry later.

He would climb chairs and adults would sneak him candy corn.

He would crawl under tables with a bowl of candy corn.

Nothing in life had ever tasted as good to him as candy corn.

Carson rarely even babbles. How did I know that he loved candy corn?

At the end of the evening, I watched him slyly walk over to the coffee table. His little eyes were shining and drawn to that bowl of orange. He pinched his fingers together and grasped a single candy corn and raised it to the sky in victory. A look of pure bliss crossed his face as he placed that candy corn in his mouth, closed his eyes and smiled as he chewed.

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a human being in such a state.

It was beautiful.

Yes, Carson loves candy corn.

We checked his belly button before he left.

We wanted to make sure there were no rogue candy pieces there.

Yes, there was a candy corn thief at my Thanksgiving celebration. And I am thankful for him.

More Mapco love

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . April 14, 2010 . 2:38PM

I know you may be tired of hearing how much I love my Mapco. I promise they don’t sponsor my blog, but if they did, I’d shout it even more. One of the advertising folks over there read the post about Bryan and my 1am adventure and sent me a very sweet note and a gas card as a thank you. It made my day. I’d post the note, but my phone camera just isn’t that great. It looks gorgeous, but doesn’t like Times New Roman. And my Mapco now has a Quiznos which means I can get my ham and swiss EVERY DAY. I love them. And they aren’t paying me to say that. I LOVE THEM. I believe in rewarding places that are clean, nice, well-stocked and helpful to me when I’m there. It’s capitalism, people! And now that they were more nice to me, I’ll go there even more often. Yes, I will.

Lately, I’ve had a lot of time to think and what I think is that being kind is underrated. The simple things in day to day life are making or breaking me the last couple of weeks and a nice word or gesture is really all it takes to salvage a day.

What I’ve also realized is that the little things in life that make a person miserable aren’t worth it and if something is toxic that it needs to be cut out like a boil. If you constantly find yourself feeling a certain way about a certain thing, a certain idea, or a certain person that makes you feel bad or unhappy, then, as painful as that is, sometimes you have to let go. Especially if you feel like you can’t confront the feeling head-on or support the person as they are.

But mainly, kindness is really really important. And if someone isn’t kind to you in your darkest of moments, move on. And when a gas company is, support them.