Lindy Davidson

So I’m in the waiting room of the hospital lab yesterday with 2 of my 3 children when a commercial comes on for baby formula.  It shows a baby sleeping peacefully in a bassinet next to a sofa where his mom is reading a book.  The windows are open and the white curtains are flowing in the breeze.  Mom is dressed in linen and the room decor is all white. There are no toys on the floor, no jelly stains on the couch.  The mom looks remarkably rested, showered, and pressed.  There are no muddy footprints on the floor, no dirty diapers in sight and no laundry stacked around the room.  No wonder moms are so frustrated, they think this is how it’s supposed to be.  Clean, quiet, serene.  HA!  

 Any check-out line at the grocery store will demonstrate where we feel we’re lacking as a society.  The magazines will tell us how to get organized, how to lose 20 pounds before bathing suit season, what to wear this spring, what our hair should look like, how to make dinner in 20 minutes, and how to budget our money (assumedly so we can pay for the bins for organization, the new bathing suit, spring wardrobe, hair make-over, groceries and, of course, the magazines.)  Apparently, we think that if we could get everything straightened up (like the formula commercial lady), life would be perfect, or at least serene.  I have one word for that…boring! 

Now my house is anything but boring.  It is a mess.  There are children everywhere and sometimes I think I’m the little old lady that lived in a shoe.  When I go to the grocery store or Target (pretty much the only two places I go) I always look out for Ambush Makeover because I am a prime candidate.  I haven’t had my hair cut since the fall, but since it stays in a ponytail and Levi takes large chunks out daily, I’m not sure why I would bother.  My wardrobe consists of about 3 pairs of pants and maybe 5 shirts.  I try not to think about wearing a bathing suit, and I gave up making dinner for Lent.  (Thanks to My Girlfriend’s Kitchen, we are eating rather well.)  I don’t believe I need to go into organization if you saw my previous blog.  But all this to say, I am rather satisfied.  Now don’t get me wrong, I just had a pity party last night complete with decorations and a cake, but there’s no way that book the serene formula lady is reading can hold a candle to the entertainment I have going around here.  Levi has learned to clap his hands, which is accompanied by his heart-melting smile.  He also likes to eat his baby food now… a lot.  He especially enjoys the intermittent chewing of his high chair between bites.  It creates a nice film on everything.  Aaron loves to play games, especially ones with a lot of pieces that can be scattered equidistantly throughout the house; but he invites me to play with him and to “sit by me?!”  Will managed to unfold an entire load of laundry tonight while cruising through the living room in his gait trainer.  He invites me to sing songs with him like “Ball Game,” “Bingo,” and “Barbara Manatee,” his favorite.  He also likes to entertain us with his piano playing, which is easy to hear if not easy to listen to.

Entropy is an index that measures change in a system.  It is central to the second law of thermodynamics (thank you Wikipedia).  Basically, entropy shows us that things tend to move from order to disorder.  This is a good thing in many ways.  How would you like it if you tried to mix up the ingredients in a cake and the eggs, sugar, flour, etc. all refused to disperse?  What if everything tended toward order?  The eggs would all huddle up on one side of the pan while the flour huddled in the other side.  Or even worse than problematic cake, if you can imagine, what if hydrogen and oxygen tended toward order, where you could only get hydrogen or oxygen, but no H2O?  I’m not really sure any of this is a valid explanation for the scientific concept of entropy, but you probably aren’t either.  My point is… the trick isn’t to create order so that we can be satisfied, the trick is to be satisfied in the midst of chaos.