Skip to main content

The highest compliment

My son just finished his last day of the USU preschool lab, and he came home with a family picture we had sent at the start of the semester and which had been laminated.

I handed the photo to my baby, and she beamed when she saw our faces. Then she proceeded to put the photo in her mouth.

It reminded me of this quote from Maurice Sendak: "Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it."

I'm glad that's how Baby Girl feels about her family. She saw us, she loved us, she ate us.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Morning After Harry Potter 7.2

Warning: If you want to see the movie, don't read this. So, I kind of feel like the only person in my news feed on Facebook who doesn't have some synonym of the word "awesome" followed by several hundred exclamation points to describe the Harry Potter movie. And I feel like a cynical, horrible person for this. Don't get me wrong, I liked the movie. The first 100 minutes of it, at least. But then . . . I don't know. Was I expecting the illustrated version of Harry Potter and that's why I'm disappointed? Well, maybe. It's just such an epic ending. Full of Christian themes and triumphant battles even after they thought Harry was dead and gripping conversations between Voldemort and Harry. Whereas this, well . . . HARRY: I'm at King's Cross. But it's clean. DUMBLEDORE: Oh, that's nice. Well, I've got to go now. HARRY: Wait! So Snape's patronus was a doe? So was my mother's! Isn't that a bit . . . odd to you? ...

Good News Limericks in a Year of Bad News

Every cloud has a silver lining 80. April 6, 2026 Let's get down to business; observe  The Artemis crew far from Earth. No longer mysterious, Moon's dark side seen clearly. Its Craters and peaks bring me mirth. 79. March 24, 2026 Tired of spuds boiled, mashed, in a stew? Try: on fire, delivered to you! "Why'd you cause such a jam?" "Guess I yam what I yam." "Small potatoes to douse," said the crew. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/38509451/flaming-potato-truck-runs-red-light-blares-disco/?fbclid=IwY2xjawRafv5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeUQdgXV423nHxs7UWVTpO79oIOBwkeFUDdhOueS72Y6j9MDMxWZRgLnzr5_Q_aem_VoeTPbde3pSzRHvICjVrrQ 78. March 8, 2026 Only so far that new money goes -- Replacing 6 doors and 9 windows. If she never showed up  Would there be this glow up? What could have been? Oh, who knows? https://www.tmz.com/2026/03/07/donna-kelce-is-remodeling-her-florida-house/?fbclid=IwY2xjawRafsZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZB...

Of Microfiche and Ring Theory

In October 1985, a young man made a long distance call to a father in Kansas. "Hi, um, I'd like to marry your daughter." The man had no idea that his daughter was dating anyone so seriously, and he asked for clarification. "Who is this? How long have you been dating?" § It began a year earlier in Math 371, the abstract algebra class at BYU. He was recently home from his mission, ready to dive back into math and engineering classes. She was in her second year at BYU, flying through the credits so quickly that she was already essentially a junior though only 18 years old. They never really talked to each other. But that isn't to say they didn't notice each other. She learned his name quickly -- Todd Moon -- and looked him up on the microfiche. This predecessor to the BYU directory was the true "stalkernet" -- you could find name, number, address, and even class schedule of anyone at the school. She saw that there was another female BYU student li...