Smile!

This has nothing whatsoever to do with parenting, but I've noticed I'm a very smiley person when I type. I guess I tend to go overboard in wanting whomever I am typing to to know that I'm smiling when I say it - don't want to sound cold and grumpy, now do I?

I find that whenever there is not already a positive word in a sentence (such as "great", "wonderful", or "glad") or no need for an exclamation point then I must punctuate with a smile (or, better yet, a winky). So, a simple greeting on Facebook would look something like this:

"Hey, girl! Was so glad to see you last night! That was such a crazy game ;) Well, I guess I'll see you next week :)"

And then I realize there is really no need for two emoticons in so short a space, so I try to decide which sentence needs the pick-me-up more and I work from there.

Don't even get me started on e-mails which tend to be more verbose in the first place. It's a smiley mess in there!

I'm sure other people don't have this problem, but what can I say? I guess that's just the way it goes ;)