Everyday greatness

Parenting is hard. I currently have a 1.5 year old and a 3.5 year old, so many of my days begin with a baseline level of frustration that comes from years of sleep deficit and the monotony of knowing that today, just like every day before it since I had children, I will complete the same menial tasks and answer the same unstoppable flow of questions.

But some magical days are like today, when you are able to wake up energized, happy, and ready to enjoy every bit of that beautiful monotony.

I think that a good portion of my good mood today started with my gentle wake up call from Carter. (Also, the wake up call didn't happen until 7:30...that doesn't hurt!) Jeffrey had already gone to work, but someone was in my bed. I heard the telltale sound of a cereal bar wrapper rustling and knew that my big boy was awake. "Mommy, it's a beautiful sunrise," he said (because I own a 3 year old who talks just like an 80 year old), "Can you please open my cereal bar?"

Following my wake up call, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, and found that carter had already put it on the counter and squeezed a very appropriate amount of toothpaste on it for me. We've worked at length on perfecting the pea sized dollop through much trial and error, but bless his heart, he loves helping mommy and that is one of the ways that his little hands can do so. You can't even get service like that at The Ritz.

Mr. Independent also decided to dress himself today. The outfit he picked (sort of) matches, but he forgot to take off his pajamas, so he's got long sleeved, long pants pajamas under his sweatpants and long sleeved shirt. He was so proud that he did it all himself that I didn't have the heart to point out his mistake. We'll just try to avoid going out in public today, I guess.

We went together to get baby brother, who was having a serious discussion with his stuffed puppy, Hot Dog. He greeted us happily as we came in, "Oh, heeeey, mama! Get out? Have sandwich?" If you've ever seen Harrison in person, you will not be surprised to hear that he would be thinking of having a very heavy meal first thing in the morning.

We ate breakfast together and they played while I got ready for the day, listening to some streaming music on my iPhone. When the song 'You give love a bad name' came on, Carter had lots of questions for me. "Why is that boy calling people bad names? We aren't supposed to say bad names."

"No, we aren't, buddy," I said, "But I think I think he's just saying that there was a girl he liked and she wasn't nice to him."

"So she was ugly to him? So we can call her bad names if she's ugly to us?" He asked.

By this point I was pretty much collapsed in laughter as I realized that I was attempting to use Bon Jovi lyrics to teach life lessons, so please someone tell Carter that we never call people bad names the next time you see him.

Yes, parenting is hard. Kids are crazy. Bon Jovi is probably a bad role model for a 3 year old, which is disappointing since his music is pretty great. But some mornings around here are really hilarious, and I'm so glad that this is my life.