My daughter was tossing a napkin back and forth between her hands, when my son looked at her and said, “You’re going to drop that.”

She continued her juggling act and replied, “No, I won’t.”

Then my son raised up his hand and swiftly knocked the napkin to the floor and said, “Told ya you’d drop it.”

Our dog had a pretty rough day at the veterinarian’s office yesterday, so last night I climbed down on the floor to pet her and make her suffer through some of my puppy talk.

When I got up, I noticed something stuck to my sock.

Thank goodness that sticky eyeball wasn’t attached to my other foot, because then I’d have to show you my sock with holes, AND I’d have to tell you that they’re the socks I “borrowed” from an Aunt. See? Those faint lines near the hole are part of her name. It was written across the sock in case she misplaced them at her retirement home.

There’s no doubt about it…my husband is a lucky man.

My husband and I took the kids out to dinner at a new Japanese steak house nearby. You know, the kind of restaurant where they make the food right at your table, with lots of fancy knife work, spatula egg-tossing, and volcanoes made out of onions.

After we started eating our meals, our chef wiped down the cooking area with a steaming hot cloth, then he scoured it front to back, and left to right.

And, as soon as the stainless steel surface was sparkling and clean, my five year old son lopped a forkful of rice right into the middle of it.

The last time my husband and I went out for a “date night”, things didn’t start off so well. Within a few minutes of leaving the house, he made a comment, at which I kiddingly snapped a retort. A sarcastic bit of back-talk, if I must be honest. But, let’s get something straight…my husband is the king of sarcasm, so it wasn’t anything he’s not used to dishing out himself.

But, since the two of us don’t get out much together anymore, he said, “Just for tonight, let’s not talk like that. Let’s pretend we’ve been dating for two weeks.”

I agreed.

And, after an evening of talking and laughing like we used to, we learned a very valuable lesson. It’s really not easy to be that nice.