Snooping into Something Good

Occasionally, I'll snoop my friends' links to other blogs. Sometimes it is to just see if that "Katie" is the one we both know. Sometimes it's because the title of the blog strikes my interest. Most of the time, after scrolling through the blog enough to know that I don't know this person, I'll close the blog and be done with it. Occasionally, though, after a bit of reading, I'll realize I've snooped into something good.

Enter The Craig Report.

While snooping through my friend C.S.'s friends list, looking for common friends we share whose blog url I didn't have yet, one link caught my eye. The Craig Report. The reasons this one stood out above the others were, one, it was unlike the rest of her links, which are titled with just the persons name (this one was obviously the actual blog title); and two, we both know someone named "Craig."

After clicking on the link, I quickly determined that this "Craig" (Ken Craig, actually) was definitely not the one I knew. I was about to close the window when the title of the top post caught my eye. "If You Like Me, Check This Box." I was intrigued. I read, and was quickly swallowed up in a good real-life story. I laughed. I cried. I continued reading.

I admit I was starting to feel a little guilty about snooping (the blog is public, but maybe he really doesn't want a bunch of strangers following him . . .), until I came to this opening statement of his in his post titled, "No Comment":

If you have just recently stumbled across this little blog o’ mine, then welcome. Please make yourself at home. Look around. Pick things up, put them back down wherever. I don’t care. Look through my underwear drawers, I’ve nothing to hide. You don’t need a coaster for your beverage. Don’t look too close at the corners, though, they may be dusty. I don’t have time to clean everything, you know!

I immediately felt at ease. Phew, I thought, he expects strangers to be reading his blog. And he doesn't mind a little dust.

I continued on. The rest of the post was about why he started the blog (to practice his writing and story telling) and why he doesn't allow comments (they were too distracting when he allowed them). As a side note, he mention how Joe Versus the Volcano is a funny movie, no matter what anyone else says. (Actually, what he wrote was, "...Because I stand by my conviction that that movie was funny. He should be three-time Academy Award winner, Tom Hanks!") I loved that movie as a kid, and have been wanting to get a DVD copy of it for some time now, so when I read Ken Craig's opinion on it, I felt I had found a friend.

Then I came across his post entitled, "Alone Again, Unnaturally," and read these words and I knew I would be returning to his blog again:

Each time one of my six children have been born, I have felt this inherent tug inside me to say something so profound – so thought provoking and weighty – that every communication medium in the world would shove a microphone in my face and ask me to repeat my brilliant insight so it could serve as the perfect sound byte for what joy feels like. But the words have never come. And they never do, not even in the small non-life-altering moments.

He goes onto list several of those small non-life-altering moments, like, (in his words because he says it better than I could), "that first time you come home from work and your baby recognizes that it’s YOU and that you are somehow very important to them and you have been gone, and they squeal and their little body shakes until you hold them," and others. As I read, my heart turned to my own two boys. How often I have tried to describe the joy and love they bring into my life, but I can't find words good enough! How I have struggled with wanting to write something really profound in their baby books that they'll read in years to come and realize, "Wow, my mom really loves me." How many times have I stepped back and realized that the great joys come in the little things?

When I first started my private family blog, The Cox Chronicles, I gave it the subtitle, "Chronicling the Prosaics of Our Lives." You won't find "prosaics" in the dictionary, or at least not as a noun as I have used it. However, several years ago, in a BYU classroom, one of my professors had used the word that way, urging us to celebrate the prosaics, those simple, everyday things and occurrences that give life meaning. He shared one such prosaic from his life to illustrate his point: his wife IMing him on Halloween asking him what he wanted to do for Halloween now that they were empty nesters. She offered the suggestion, "Let's get dressed up and go scare people." See? Simple. Funny. Not life-altering, but definitely one of the little things that give life meaning.

There are moments that my kids drive me absolutely crazy. I'd rip my hair out, except they are already doing that for me. Ouch. I'm surprised I'm not bald yet. There are times I want to lock them in separate rooms where they can't hurt each other and run away and hide until my husband gets home (I don't, except at nap time). But between those moments are flashes of inexplicable joy. Baby A. bursting out in giggles at toddler J. throwing a ball in the air or ribbon dancing with an ace bandage. J. seeing the fireworks, and yelling "Tack! Run way!" while running away. My babies cuddled up to my breast nursing or smiling at me for the first time and every time after that. J. pulling himself up and "pushing" the stroller at 10 months of age, or making a joke when saying his first sentence. So many little prosaics. So much joy. I could go on for days. Truly, I am blessed.

So thank you, Ken Craig, for reminding me what is important. Thank you for making your blog public so all us "snoopers" could stumble across it. Thank you, C.S., for linking to it on your blog. I feel ready to face the rest of the day, with whatever trials--and joys--it might bring.