lazy saturday afternoon

I like word puzzles. A lot. My favorite place to do them is in bed. It seems so decadent to snuggle up in bed with a sharp pencil and a fresh puzzle. My bedside table is stacked with books of crossword puzzles and sudoku puzzles. On Friday night I went to Borders with our friend Christy (hi Christy!) and I got a big book of find-a-word puzzles from the bargain section for $3.99. Usually I don't find these kinds of puzzles challenging enough, but this one interested me because it doesn't actually tell you which words you are looking for. It gives a theme (in this case "bread") and tells you to find 23 bread-related words. I've been doing these puzzles pretty much non-stop since I got the book.

So on Saturday afternoon, it was no surprise to Bryan to come home and find me in bed with my puzzles, and Bean sleeping on her bed in the corner. He climbed in bed and started "helping me" solve it. It went like this: "Okay there's 'granary' at the top, so circle that one...and there's 'rye'...'crust' is at the bottom." When I pointed out that this was no fun for me because all I was doing was circling words he was finding, without having time to look for them myself, he took the book and the pen and retreated to the end of the bed saying "You're right, I can circle them myself. I don't need your help. Thanks for pointing that out!"

I patted him on the butt a few times and was saying something about how he's lucky he's such a cute jerk, when out of nowhere Bean flies up on the bed. She promptly snuggled in beside her favorite parent and began "helping" him with the puzzle.

At first we were shocked. We have been less than successful in other training goals, but one thing Bean knows for sure is that she has to wait to be invited onto the bed. The signal? We pat the bed twice. After a horrible moment of us thinking she was blatantly breaking rules she knows (and you know what comes next: dyeing her fur green, listening to loud obnoxious music, and breaking curfew), we realized that she had heard me pat Bryan on the bottom and assumed it was our signal. Since she had obeyed the rules, we let her stay.

I present to you, my family:

It was a nice moment for us.