Last Night

Last night I yelled at my son for not eating his dinner then let my daughter cry herself to sleep while I tucked the boy in.

It was not the best of moments for this mom.

But before that-- there was an hour at turtle park, my independent boy climbing and digging and exploring on his own, my girl crawling fearlessly through woodchips and sand, scooping sand with a rake, climbing up and onto and into all the plastic toys that go to this park to die. There was a picnic snack where Ivy only had two woodchips in her mouth to spit out before she could eat her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. There were friendly moms to chat with and toddlers galore out in the perfect spring sunshine...

There was the picture perfect moment of my boy, my rascal, my little scamp, sitting on a flowerbed wall, holding a gone-to-seed dandelion in his hand, the blue of his eyes matching the blue of his new excavator T-shirt, pink cheeks from sun and exertion, giving me his impish smile as he “took a break” from sitting in his stroller.

You'll have to imagine that photograph here as we did not take a camera along.

I am having some mommy guilt this morning over how our idyllic evening ended, you can be sure of that. But I am trusting in the resiliency of children and hoping that, should they remember any of last night, it will be the sunshine of our trip to the park, splashes in the bath and snuggles before bed, and nothing more.