Life for me is about moments registering hot OR cold.  The danger about hot OR cold is that warm AND cool, variations of the original, can mean vastly different experiences.

It wasn't until I became a mother that I started having hot and cold, warm and cool moments in rapid succession.

For example, yesterday, started beautifully, sun shining, a little leaf raking, lots of snacks...and then Axel learned something new.  Yesterday, my son figured out how to gag.  SICK right?  Like many before him, and hopefully to get it out of his system before the testy teenage years, Axel figured out that by cramming your hands in your mouth, you do something really strange.

Ok, I try not to react to shocking things.  Falls, minor scraps, toys mid flight down the stairs, little can get a reaction from me.  Growing up around boys, I learned quickly that a reaction is what they are searching for.  But, sitting in the living room, out of exciting things to do by 10am, and your toddler starts to gag and laugh at himself...AAHHHHHH.  Definitely a cold/reactive moment!

Thinking that Axel's "learning 1 thing new every day" will be gaging himself, I immediately thrust myself into action with coloring, stickers, even finger paints didn't stop the thrill of gagging.  A hot moment certainly.

Among the many things no one tells you, is that a toddler may learn something new everyday, but during sleep, God erases some of the terrible things.  By the time Axel had woken up from his nap, the gagging had stopped, and we could continue on with normalcy, and thankfully, boredom.

Later in the evening, I decided that Axel and I would go to the grocery store and pick out the candy for our average 300 trick-or-treaters.  Seeing as we only went for 1 thing, I made a potentially cool decision as a mother to let him push the kid carts for the first time.  

Stopping in front of every customers cart, Axel made direct eye contact with every SINGLE person we passed and greeted with a "hi" AND a "bye bye".  Not 1 person shopping at 6pm last night got away without noticing that Axel had reached a milestone.  Ultimate freedom.  I'm sure he warmed a few hearts in produce and definitely in the candy aisle.

Today, I started out cold.  A COLD...I thought I had kicked it a week ago, but it is revisiting for round 2.  Desperately trying to pour on the heat all day, I have shivered my way to now.

There is however a little warm to my day...I decided on the pattern I will use for Axel's 2009 Christmas sweater!  

My first knitting pattern book, 8 years ago maybe, featured a dreamy little sweater that I planned to knit for my baby "some day".  Paging through the book, I found the sweater with a tiny red post-it-note.  I had conveniently placed the sticker inside the book, so no one would know of my silly baby dreams...and I had forgotten all about it.  While my friends were off at some bar in college, I must have been paging through the patterns (I tend to read them like a novel, suspense and all)...and destiny has it that I will knit that very sweater for my very first and very special boy this year!

Definitely warm.