One of those days

Minnesota has a lot of playgrounds. Take a five minute drive to anywhere, and you’re bound to pass about 3 parks along the way. In the summer, EVERY TIME we pass one of these parks, Cameron would ask if we could stop there. At first I would respond with “Maybe…” but he soon learned that maybe usually meant “No.” Then I tried, “On another day.” To which he would respond, “Which day?” And on a rare occasion, I would actually just stop, and let the boys play for a while before heading to our intended destination. But my point is, Cameron really loves parks.

Today I was having a really bad day. You’d think yesterday would have been my bad day with as many bodily fluids that ended up on me (Cameron’s snot, Ella’s spit-up, Max’s boogers, ear wax, slobber and poop that had leaked out of his diaper, down his leg and onto my favorite pair of jeans), but I remained quite calm and happy yesterday. Today was a different story. I think I can only handle so many days in a row of constant sleep interruption, with no naps during the day and a gremlin of a toddler, before I just become evil. Today I could not keep up the “smile” when within a 7 minute time period, Max managed to pour out a bag of crackers all over the kitchen floor, purposefully drip red juice drops around our cream carpet and then while I was running upstairs to get the carpet cleaner, he felt the need to sit right on top of Ella. And it really didn’t help that he screamed all through dinner and felt the need to cling to my leg screaming for me to pick him up as I was trying to assemble everything to go to the gym. As I said, today was a bad day. One of those days when I literally held up my hands and yelled, "I quit!"

But at the end of the day, I decided to just add to the gloominess by doing a task I completely dread and usually avoid…mopping the kitchen floor. When doing so, Cameron joined me and actually was a big help by drying the wet wooden planks as I continued washing.

And when we were finished, for no reason whatsoever, he said, “Mommy, I love you.”
I responded with, “I love you more.”
“I love you a lot more,” he continued.
“I love you much, much more,” I said.
And his final response put a real smile on my face, one that reminded me of how fortunate I am, one that made me forget about all the bad of the day and brought out all the good of staying home with my kids, a response that will hopefully take me through tomorrow.

He said triumphantly , “Well I love you much, much, much more than going to the park!”