bloody mary, joy, and the toothpaste

At my church book study we were talking about joy and what it means to each of us… I tried to explain that to me joy was paying attention to the moments in my life that go something like this…

I was finishing something on the computer and had a momentary glitch – “shoot, shoot, shoot,” I said to myself in frustration. Tru came running… “What mom? What do you want me to shoot?”

Ten minutes later Anna Mae and Cole walked in the door and frantically told me that “bloody mary” could be seen in the bathroom. Anna explained that you have to turn out the lights, stand in front of the mirror, turn in circles seven times, and “bloody mary” will appear in the mirror.

The next half hour was spent with Cole, Tru, and Anna in the bathroom trying out the story that they must have heard on the bus. When “mary” did not show-up Cole walked out grumbling that the kids in Anna’s class have too much imagination. Tru somehow got toothpaste all over his t-shirt? And Anna came to tell me that it was not going well.

“She must be busy ‘cuz lots of people were going to try it when they got home today. You know she was just a girl riding a roller coaster and she fell off and landed on a mirror and that’s why you can find her in the mirror – did you know that Mom?” Honestly, I think I did hear about “bloody mary” when I was in grade school, but the roller coaster sounds a little Anna’esk to me…

I was picking up the kitchen last night – the compost pile of papers that had been in a stack so long that they no longer had any value needed to be removed from my counter. Cole was waiting for me to come up stairs to read with him when we uncovered a little framed photo of my parents. Mom had given us each one recently and it I just had not found a place to put it yet. Cole decided that the bathroom would be the best place since I have a photo collage on the wall in there.

This morning when I sent Tru in to brush his teeth he came out yelling “Grandma is in the bathroom, I saw her, I did!”

Anna went in yelling, “Is she in the mirror like “bloody mary?”

“No,” Tru called, “But she is going to get full of tooth paste if she stays in there.” I was laughing to myself when Tru disappeared upstairs.

Later this morning I was running around the house finishing the morning clean-up when I noticed the photo of Mom and Dad was on the little table next to Tru’s bed. He must have taken it up there after he found it this morning.  

I am finally reading the latest Harry Potter book where portraits come alive, talk, and interact, so I have to admit that I thought to myself, “well this is good now, Mom and Dad can watch Tru sleep and not have to worry about being attacked by “bloody mary” or being covered toothpaste. And then, more realistically I knew that it was really just a moment to notice another goofy moment of Joy…