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So Life Will Go Well With You
“Smell my hand…”
Never a good idea when offered by a boy. But I did … hesitantly.
“Oh my word!” I reeled back, wishing I could un-smell whatever I had just smelled. “Ohhhhhh… sick!… Ohhhhh-ewww!!!”
Muffled laughter preceded an, “I know. It’s gross, isn’t it.”
“Yes it’s gross!! What is that?”
“I don’t know..”
He had been playing outside. It could have been anything – a dirty dog, worms or worse. Quite frankly, I didn’t want to go there.
“Well, you can get right up and go wash your hands.”
And, without so much as a peep, he hopped up from the couch, went to the bathroom, washed his hands, then came and sat beside me again.
“Now smell it,” he offered.
Which again, I did. This time freely, without worry or concern that something horrible would greet me.
I was wrong.
For 
I don’t know about you, but I never knew I could love anything like I love my kids. Each one.
The other day Jack asked me if I loved Fury or him more. This was after he snuggled into me and whispered a hushed confession, “I love you more than Dad.” It was as if a burdene had been lifted off his guilt-ridden soul. It’s not right to love someone more. “You’re so warm,” he continued, “and squishy.” Okay, so – I could have lived without the last bit. But, he was talking about how he relishes scooching close and burying his feet under my legs. So what if I’m a bit squishier than his fit father … it’s on my list of follow-through’s.
I laughed and hugged him. He loves his dad. But somewhere along the way he has equated certain things that I do as signifying more 
Still bumbling along my new road of follow-through rather good-intentions. It hasn’t been pretty, but I have taken steps. Teeny-tiny, sometimes microscopic, baby steps. But steps, nonetheless.
This morning, getting past the many months of good intentions to go the dentist for a cleaning, I made an appointment … and went. Is it necessary to admit that Petra, our dentist’s office manager, might have heard that we were next door at the neighboring orthodontist and that she actually got up, left her desk, came to the other office, and took me by the hand (literally) to make my appointment? Nahhh… at least I went.
And, in the process, I decided to knock off my list another one of my ever-present, or should I say “slowly disappearing,” good intentions. I have the best intentions to exercise every 
I’ve been convicted of late. I feel stuck on a road paved with good intentions.
Maybe its my procrastination tendencies … maybe its being a mother of five … maybe its motherhood induced ADD … I’m not sure. But at the end of the day, I find myself thinking about all the things I’ve been meaning to do, but rarely get around to doing.
So, for the next thirty days, I’ve set up a chart for myself – a checklist of sorts. Something to help me exit my good-intention paved road and put me on the living-life highway. Because the good-intention road, though often admirable in aspiration, is full of stress and loose laces that never seem to get tied. Some of the things on my list are oldies but goodies that fell off the radar at some point. Like our morning readings that I’ve done with the kids for