Like Usual.

The other day, I was hanging out with three of my favorite kids. We were playing kickball with a smaller-than-a-kickball-type rubber ball. After striking out, I poutingly sat on the sidelines with the four-year-old, who couldn't figure out that after kicking the ball (further than I could have), she was supposed to run to first base. "I can't do it, Lizzy!" she screamed. "I don't know where to run!"

I excitedly pointed toward first base and said, "Right there! You're almost there! Keep going!"

But "right there" was too obscure for her four-year-old brain, which saw so many possibilities. She didn't realize that there were four bases connected by straight lines--she saw a million directions in which she could run. That way? That way? That way?

I watched her little eyes dart in all directions, earnestly trying to figure out where "right there" was supposed to be.

And then she collapsed on the dusty ground and began to sob.

So I scooped her up and we had a short rest on the sidelines while her brothers attempted to play baseball with the larger-than-a-baseball-type rubber ball.

While we sat in the shady grass, both of us recuperating and nursing our egos, we took off our shoes and wiggled our toes in the late summer breeze. "Ooh!" I said, "My toes are a little stinky!"

And Theo, being four, picked up her shoe and put it to her nose. Then she pulled her foot to just below her nostrils and announced, "Mine are not stinky. My feet smell....like usual."

I laughed, thinking that was such a strange thing to say. "And does 'like usual' smell like?" I asked her.

"Plain," she said. "My feet smell plain."

"Plain, just like usual?" I said, smiling.

"Yep. Just like usual," she said.

Then she put back on her shoes, stood up, and announced she wanted to finish running to first base.