The Happy Post

After an exhausting beyond exhausting day (I totally blame the weatherman and all the mugginess coupled with the poor air quality from wildfires in BC - certainly not my crabby pills or sore muscle) we had just one more errand to run before picking up the oldest from football practice and heading home to make breakfast for dinner.

Because there is always just one more thing, isn't there?

As I was driving home I kept seeing a flicker of movement in my side mirror. Ruling out aliens and other sights that could be coming from the peripheral angle, I realized that the movement wasn't anything to be worried about, it was simply my daughter's fingers waving the peace sign at all the passing cars. A huge smile spread across her delicate face as the colors of the hazy, humid, setting sun warmed her skin, the cooling breeze from the open car window making her happier than I'd seen her all day.

By the time we got to football practice, her hair was a mess, windblown and tangly to the extreme. The clothes she'd thrown on over her bathing suit had bits and pieces of grape stems stuck to them (because you can't take her anywhere without a snack these days) and she had a giant bruise on her leg from some kind of fun or another.

Sidenote: When we were kids, our pediatrician told my mom once that if your kids didn't have bruises on their legs he would worry that they weren't normal.

She looked like a hot mess. A happy, hot mess with a stuffed monkey clutched under her arm as she climbed the gigantic hill in her flip flops to her brother's football practice.

My middle child was even happy by the time we reached the top of the hill, trying not to laugh at his sister's appearance and goofiness. Sometimes I can't help but wonder if she wasn't born into our family for one reason, to make us laugh after a long and tiring day. For just hours earlier, they were all crazy banshees acting like animals - banging on eachother's bedroom doors, bugging one another and basically causing more wrinkles on my forehead than anyone deserves.

After a dinner of pancakes, fruit, sausage and eggs they decided to all sleep in their older brother's room. Which basically made me forget all about the laps they did through the kitchen while I was cooking. Score for me because that means they were eager to get into their beds and although I knew I'd have to tell them to "hush" and go to sleep a few times, my job was basically done...which meant I could get onto more important things like watching the premier of The Real Housewives of DC...omg.

It's amazing what a day can do, if you let it.