- When my two year old woke up, right off the bat, she had a clear idea of what she wanted to do today. While we were still in pajamas, before I had ingested even 1/4 of my cup of coffee, she was requesting a list of things she felt made for a perfect day. She wanted to go to the park, eat a popsicle there, and blow Mickey Mouse bubbles. Pretty specific was her request, and in her mind, completely within reason. As a 35 year old woman, I had a completely different idea for what I wanted out of today. I had errands to run, such as needing to go to the bank. I also wanted to clean the house up a bit, nothing crazy, just enough straightening so I didn’t want to jump off a cliff every time I walked in the living room. As we sat there this morning, amidst the avalanche of clutter, Chloe dreamed of a bubbly play day while I tried to search the Internet for how long postpartum hormonal imbalances last. I needed any shred of text to tell me I wasn’t crazy for just crying while I read cute facts about Mr Rogers.
- There was rain sticking around at the start of the day, which made a park excursion quite difficult. We made plans for a play date instead with some others Moms and littles. Chloe didn’t hit any of the other children that I’m aware of, and that to me made it a success. My plan was to make my bank run prior to play date. I found myself running around like my favorite fowl friend who has suffered decapitation, and in doing so, lost my sanity temporarily. I had the children in the jeep and ran out with the last of the bags, pulling the locked door behind me, yet leaving the keys on the hook. Thankfully my play date was across the street, and required no vehicle or anything in the house. After Chloe played with kids her age and I actually got to have a conversation with adults for a couple of hours, Ben was home on break and let us back in the house. I convinced Chloe to take a power nap. She brought up the park, popsicle, and bubbles again. I promised we could, if she took a nap. So she did.
- I could have come up with some excuse easy enough that a two year old would believe, some reason why we could not go to the park. I had a hamper full of laundry, a sink full of dishes, and tons of tiny things I consistently put off. (I had been able to save my sanity by straightening the living room while they napped). You know me well enough by now,I’m sure, to know that after nap-time we loaded up and went to the park. Sometimes it seems like you spend so much time and energy entertaining your child, and it’s hard to see the pay-off, especially in the midst of it. When you’re searching the aisles for Mickey Mouse bubbles (which I found), cleaning up melted Popsicle off a little face, bouncing a fussy baby who didn’t get enough quiet time for naps, rushing to make dinner in time, cleaning the stink of the day off two kids, and trying to pin-point if you got accomplished anything you wanted to do; you can wonder if it was really worth it. Then a freshly scrubbed, naked toddler walks up to you, grabs your leg while smiling at you with a gap toothed grin, and says “I love you Mommy!” Then you know you got more accomplished today than you could of ever hoped for.
That is all 🙂