whoosh

Do you ever have one of those moments where you just nearly fall over from emotion? I had one of them today, and I know I'm going to hate myself when I re-read this and see it written in this sort of overly explanatory, self-aware style that totally fails to capture the essence of the moment. But anyway, my friend Carol, an accomplished ukulele player, had promised she would send Luke her beginner ukulele. It helped that she knew he had interest, we had family uke experience (Grandma P.), and her old uke just happens to be known affectionately as L'uke. I told her she couldn't possibly want a two-year-old to be bashing around something of such great sentimental value, but anyway...
The box came today while Luke was napping, which gave me a great opportunity to open it and inspect it before prying toddler hands got ahold of it. Then the weirdest thing happened - While I was opening the box, I just suddenly felt a *whoosh* like I can't even describe. I imagined how completely tickled and happy Grandma would be to see me opening this ukulele and teaching my son to play. It was almost like I could feel her seeing me opening the box and just being completely thrilled. My eyes just completely filled with tears and I actually had to stop for a second to sort of regain my footing.
That emotion dried up pretty quickly after I completely failed to tune it properly and strummed the first note - *twoing* - sending all native Hawaiians within shouting distance running for the hills. But I got the hang of it pretty quickly and it is very cool. It's definitely a mom toy and NOT a Luke toy. I didn't show it to him after he woke up - I think I want to wait until I can play a few chords reasonably well and then he can watch me and learn how to hold it.
After dinner we heard the unmistakable sound of police siren and canned Christmas music, which could only mean one thing: The Santa float was outside our block! Given that Santa is all Luke has talked about for the past week, we couldn't miss the opportunity. I went outside to catch up with Dave and Luke, and realized belatedly that it was a photo opportunity. So I did a hundred-yard dash back to the house, then back to the float with camera in hand, huffing and puffing and pausing to get that perfect shot. Then the whoosh came again - seeing Luke totally excited about Santa, feeling like what it really means to be a parent, and feeling that last piece of pizza rising up in my throat and threatening to make a reappearance. Mmmmmm...emotions on overdrive. Yes, that's what Christmas is all about.