The Last Lecture

Randy Pausch's very successful last lecture is a book now, a nice one. Read it recently, had already watched his lecture on Youtube. For those who do not know, Randy Pausch was a Carnegie Mellon professor who found out he was dying and chose to spend his last few months embracing life rather in addition to planning for his family in his absence. His last lecture is a father's way of compressing into a few pages what he would have done with his presence for his children over several years. Really young kids. So I hope they get a hefty part of the royalty that his very successful book should earn. I almost feel like I know his wife and admire her to bits.

So I figured I did not need to die to live, if you know what I mean. Started out today with a long needed clean up of the kids' playroom. Had commissioned a conversion for them - we had an old table that we got fitted out as an art cum mechano set table for the kids' play room. Now, since space is a major issue, planning for every piece of stuff we have is crucial. And a lot has to go elsewhere or out to fit in new stuff. The table came this morning as I was rushing out to work. The kids and I spent a wonderful time chatting, sharing, helping and cleaning out the play room after dinner today.

A lot got thrown - my son loves to MAKE paper rockets that look like space shuttles. He makes and makes and makes....we have run out of rough paper, one-sided paper, newspaper ....you get the drift! We found paper rockets in several unusual and totally impossible places. Also got a lot of junk out. That is not the story.

I have a drawer which is not accessible to the kids. This is where birthday party return gifts go, art supplies that are too advanced for them are stored, spares of toys/things that are duplicates....basically a drawer that is my back up for sudden birthday gifts and this place where I store kids' stuff for a rainy day. For 'NOT NOW'.

Today, we went through the drawer and got out replacements for the nubs of crayons that they had faithfully used, broke out spinning tops that get to be loaded into another gun type mechanism and spin with lights, found stationery supplies for two years of school and organized stuff for 'not now'!

The art/mechano table is set up, the play room is clean, the kids were so transparently happy and I feel like I have broken out of that middle-class-let's-hoard-for-when-we-will-not-have mindset for today. That drawer still has stuff because it is not good to show abundance as a way of life to kids (or adults!) but for today, we did live and laugh and have a great bonding evening together as mother and kids.

The other rooms are next....and people and things will not be spared! ;-D

G'night!