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I think I really should start a gratitude journal. My friend, Ben Milne posted to facebook, asking what was good about all our days. After two days on the road, I was getting a little tired an cranky, and I was letting a disappointing hotel room get me down. His question reminded me that despite having a stupid argument about booking hotels, my day was “past epic, all the way to sublime.”
First of all, at breakfast this morning, our 3-1/2 year old son read for the first time ever. Lately I’ve been feeling like I miss everything about my kids. They’re growing up so blindingly fast and I am deep in working-mama-guilt-world that I’m missing the whole thing. So having 20 hours of car time with my kiddos is blissful and exceeding expectation. And they’re so happy to have my undivided attention, we’re just basking around each other like a trio of happy goof balls.
But I digress….my son read! He looked at the menu at breakfast and read out loud, while pointing to the item “Eggs, I want eggs.” My husband asked him what else he could read on the menu and he said “Pancakes” and pointed again. Eureka! And the best part? I know how he learned it. His favorite book is the Max and Ruby one about making a birthday cake, where Ruby gives Max a shopping list and one of the items is EGGS!! I read it to him at least three times this week and you could just see his wheel turning as he looked at Ruby’s shopping lists. Take THAT, Mama Guilt!
We took the kids up in the St Louis Arch, and I (thanks to Twitter!) got advance ticket information on their website, including a discount on the Mississippi River cruise. Kids on a boat are fun, and better yet, we managed to keep blanket doggy and all sneakers on the boat with us! Winning! The kids thought the arch was amazing, and it was fun watching them discuss the engineering of the whole thing with their Mech E Dad.
Then, just outside Nashville tonight, our darling daughter slammed her finger so hard in the door that we had to do the parental pantomime/eye contact discussion of “Is it broken? It may be. I think so too. What should we do?” You can’t say that stuff out loud around our high strung, very anxious little girl, but that’s why this is actually a highlight. Communication worked, we got the finger triaged and determined that waiting the hour until Nashville was better than searching for some regional hospital. And by the time we hit city limits, the icing and taping had worked, swelling was going down, and her chatter had turned to figuring out how to clap one handed at the game and how much her Angry Birds scores would suffer.
We arrived in Nashville at almost 10, but I had promised the nearly passed out kids they could stop by the American Outlaws bar for a Sprite before bed and say hello to everyone (well, we were supposed to get in around 9). We got them sodas and the other American Outlaws started chatting with the kids.
Of course I’m partial, but I really do LOVE watching my kids in a group of adults. For the most part, even exhausted, they amaze me. They chatted, let me brag on how many caps they each have, and my beautiful girl led a song from on top of a barstool. I realize this is not what most parents hope their children aspire to, but for me….in a word….sublime.
And the soccer starts later today!!
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Soccer....Family Style 