The Gift of Laughter

I should lie down and sleep. I should keep my hand still. The fingers have been waking me up at night, tight and rigid. They are not happy with the crutches. And I was trouble today. I said I would help in my school's booth at a local fair for an hour. We were so busy, I ended up staying 4 hours. The wheelchair is bulky, so we have been leaving it at school. And once again, I don't want to hold my family back. Cool things needed to be found. Like the very tall fire truck ladder. And face painting. And Lightning McQueen! I do more than I should. I know that. I am driven by a lifelong motivation to 'keep up' and 'not give up'. It is so, so hard to set limits. So hard to disappoint people. Disappoint the people you love. Disappoint yourself.

So I pushed myself. And it wasn't too bad. We will see how I feel tomorrow. And I don't think they will be happy at physical therapy. I can't imagine that the swelling is going down with all of my activates. And tomorrow the kids have a gymnastics showcase. Hopefully I can get a few good photos. It's usually very busy.

That is tomorrow though. Today, we played video games while mom (me) rested. I put ice on my ankle. See, I can be a good girl :)

If you don't have children, you may not know about the zombie-craze. Kids love zombies these days. My girl and boy find them endlessly fascinating. So, as we are playing games, Anika and I discuss the zombie's limited vocabulary. All they say is rawr and argh and heeawh. How are we supposed to understand them?

"We need a zombie dictionary," I said.

We laughed and laughed. The deep, cleansing laughter that erases all troubles. We kept adding new ideas. New books. The Zombie Joke Book and The Zombie Alphabet Book.

I have written and published little books for her before. And I said, "Let's make it."

"Really?"

We decided to use Martha Stewart's Craft Studio on the iPad for our illustrations. I hope to make a PDF that we can share with others.

Anika and I pass ideas back and forth with funny inspirations.

In fact, rawr is a good word. I need to create a page for that.

I know it can be dangerous to put good ideas on the Internet, and these are great ideas. But I trust that anyone who loves our Zombie Kid Books will contact me so we can make them for happy zombie fans everywhere.

As for me, I am working on a big post about CMT tricks, inspired by my good friends Nic and Melissa. I am in awe of how these fabulous women balance CMT challenges every day. We do far more than we realize. We may be very good at saying our challenges are 'not a big deal, really'. We create a dynamic new normal.

My normal requires a lot of sleep. Good dreams! Wishing you rawr!