Some days are just happy days

Some days are hot tea, warm belly, happy heart days. Even when they are difficult. Even when your husband is away for a week and you are juggling work, two boisterous boys, commuting, cleaning, laundry and well, life. Some days start out in the pre-dawn dark with sippy cups and snuggles between warm bodies still breathing deeply.

Some mornings require tip-toe wardrobe selections and stealth dressing in the dark so as not to wake the cherubs who will turn gremlin in a hearbeat if woken prematurely. They require precise application of pacifiers and blankies to soothe and clothe and transfer sleepy kids to carseats.  And some days everything just goes right. Even when it seems to be going wrong – tears and protests and attempts to extricate from seatbelts. Some days the mom keeps it together, imagines what it might be like to be deposited from a warm bed into a rigid confined seat, and stops in her tracks to converse. With her kids.

And when they look at her wide eyed, tear drops still poised in the crooks of their eyes, she knows it’s now or never. They have ten minutes together before eight hours of seperation anxiety and what she says into that moment matters.

So, I didn’t switch on the car. I didn’t rev the engine and speed away in an attempt to beat the grid lock. I managed not to yell or shout or vent. I took a deep breath. I leaned between the front seats and looked my boys in the eye and acknowledged their frustration. I recognized their bravery at going from bed to someone else’s arms today. I reminded them that we are in this together because we are a family. I am on their side. And I’m so glad they’re on mine. There were smiles and high fives. And then we drove away. Together. Because we’re a team. And today, today I had that most perfect of parenting experiences as my reward – the happy drop-off.

And it made me feel like this: