A Bug & A Wish

Dear Em,
You've been in kindergarten for a little over two months, & I have to admit, at times it's been a challenging transition. Through all the changes & the bumps along the way, you've really grown to love being a kindergartner. You love your little school, & you adore the new, little friends you've made along the way.

Daddy & I can't help but feel removed. When you went to Sweet Peas, we dropped you off each day. We said hi to your directors & your classmates. We got to hear about which classmate was about to have a baby brother & see which classmate brought in sea creature stuffed animals each day. We could see your classwork on the walls & had a few moments to touch base with your teachers about how they were doing & the things you were working on. When we picked you up from school, we got short glimpses of what classroom life was like for you before one of your little friends would shout out, "Emma, your mom/dad is here."

Now that you're in kindergarten, we don't get to have that daily glimpse into your school life. What we do get is the things you share with us once you get home. There are days where you can't seem to remember anything you did at school. Luckily, more often than not, you can remember little bits of your day. I love hearing about how you play zoo keeper in gym class, how you are working on identifying main characters & plots in library, & how you learned how to make a star in art. You teach me new words in Spanish each week & recite adorable poems you learned at "morning meetings." You shared with me that one little boy is the smartest kid in class...at least he told you he was & you believe him (he knows things like what a trapezoid is & what 100 + 100 equals).

One of our favorite things that you've taught us about is a bug and a wish. You were discussing with us a difficultly you were having with another classmate. He was pretending that a block was a car, & he was driving his "car" all over your body. You didn't want him driving his "car" all over your body. You explained to us that you had given him a bug & a wish. A bug & a what?? "A bug & a wish, Mom. It's where you say, 'you're bugging me & I wish you would stop.'" A bug & a wish! Isn't that the most freaking adorable thing in the world?!

Knowing how to handle conflict is not something that is inherent. It is taught & learned along the way. Your style of resolving conflict will probably evolve through different situations & different years (let me just warn you now, there is very little that works with a three year old). It makes my heart happy that, for now, you have a bug & a wish.

I have to say, there are many times in my work day that I would LOVE to use a bug & a wish.

I love you so,
Mommy

Butterfly Birthday Party: The Venue

Dear Em,
I gave you the choice of where you wanted to have your birthday party this year, & you chose to have it at Roger Williams Zoo. We love Roger Williams Zoo. We love visiting all the animals. The Big Backyard is one of our favorite spots in all of Rhode Island. The zoo has come a long way over the years with all of the fantastic updates that have been made.

Unfortunately, having your birthday party at the zoo was a little bit of a disappointment. It was by far the most expensive venue we've used so far. First, the birthday package doesn't just include the kids. Adults are part of the headcount too. Second, the package is expensive because it covers the cost of the party itself as well as everyone's entrance fees into the zoo. I couldn't believe how quickly it all added up (& that was with our membership discount).

Still, I was looking forward to having party coordinators take over the entertainment. The birthday party descriptors talked about the coordinators playing fun games & leading creative crafts with all you kids so that I could enjoy the party. I was sure you would have a blast.

In reality, the activities involved sitting at tables...the whole time...with four & five year olds. There was one game. It was a guessing game. 90% of the crafting you did was coloring (we could have colored at home). By the end, all you kids were bouncing off the walls, & the party coordinators were not holding your attention at all. It was total chaos. Rather than sitting back & enjoying the moment, I became the person to ask your little friends to stop climbing up shelves or standing on benches. Music? Do you guys want to listen to some music? By the end, I was totally overwhelmed & completely exhausted (it was at that moment one of the coordinators expressed that they don't typically have parties with such young kids without all the parents being present...sigh, that might have been good to know when I was booking the party).

For me, there was one true bright spot during your two hour party: the Butterfly exhibit. It was there you & your little friends were able to finally move around & explore & have fun. Butterflies landed on some of your little friends, & you were all just happy to look at them all & walk around the butterfly garden.

Afterwards, some of your friends stayed for a little while. We let you guys run around the Big Backyard & burn off some energy. You were beaming. You loved every moment of your birthday party & the time you got to spend with your precious friends. To you, everything was perfect. Total chaos aside, I guess that's what really matters. You were thrilled with your 5.5 birthday party.

Still, we will never be having another birthday party at the Roger Williams Zoo.

I love you so,
Mommy

Butterfly Birthday Party: DIY Favor Bags

Dear Em,
I love favor bags that include something that is usable over time. Our favorites are favor bags that include crafts. A few months ago, you went to a birthday party & received a favor bag that included a wooden lizard with paints. You named your lizard Lizzie & loved it. It was a wonderful rainy day activity.

I wanted to do something like that for your Butterfly Birthday Party favor bags. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any wooden butterfly painting activities that weren't crazy expensive (it turns out, I wasn't looking in the right section of the craft store). In fact, even after searching the internet & craft stores, I had a hard time finding anything that wasn't total junk or super expensive. So, I turned to Pinterest.

I made a Butterfly Birthday Board & pinned a bunch of DIYs that looked easy & fun. The first was this Butterfly Sun Catcher Craft I thought the kids would love.I had plans to include all of the paper materials in your favor bags so the kids could make their sun catchers at home. Unfortunately, this was one of those instances where the "easy" Pinterest project ended up being a total pain. Our printer wasn't cooperating, & I couldn't print out the free template from home. I went to Staples to print the butterfly templates, but they wouldn't print them because the image is copyrighted. Whomp Whomp.

That's when Nonnie came & saved the day. She traced & cut out each butterfly template by hand. It was extremely tedious & didn't come out looking exactly the way it did in the website picture. In the end, I think Nonnie was ready to kill me & the butterfly templates. I hope your little friends enjoyed making butterfly suncatchers. We haven't even attempted making ours. I think I'm sick of looking at them, frankly. But I'm still holding out that it will be a fun rainy day activity for you later this year.

Our next craft for the favor bag were these Butterfly Clothespin Magnets. I had plans to make them with you & Nonnie, but Nonnie quickly decided I had too much on my plate. You & Nonnie took over the project, & your butterfly magnets came out super cute.

The last thing to DIY was the favor bags themselves. I had purchased plain, brown bags, & I wanted to glam them up a little bit. We used the same butterfly punch from the craft store that we had decorated the party hats with. Nonnie glued the colorful butterflies onto the bags. It was one of the most simple DIYs we did (& I'm saying this knowing that it was ALL Nonnie).

We cut out circles & glued more punched butterflies to the middle. I wrote "Thank You!," punched a star hole through the circle, & used some pink twine to fasten the circles to each bag (Nonnie actually let me do that part). We filled up the favor bags with the Butterfly sun catchers, a butterfly airplane, a butterfly straw, & butterfly bubbles. Then we clipped the butterfly clothespin magnets to the tops of the bags. Viola, we had favor bags.

Not everything turned out exactly the way I had envisioned, & it al took a lot more time & energy than I would have hoped (so thankful that Nonnie was there to help/take over). Still, I think our favor bags were really stinkin' cute. They were a cute way to send off your little friends & let them know we were glad they were able to come to your party. And hopefully, some of the contents were usable over time (I know we've been using the clothespin butterflies as chip clips).

I love you so,
Mommy

Butterfly Birthday Party: DIY Party Hats

Dear Em,
I think we've been pretty successful so far at throwing entertaining birthday parties with fun themes. We go with the theme when picking out the invitations, & we've let you & your little friends dress-up in the themes for most of your birthday parties. That's kind of as far as we've taken your birthday party themes up until this year. I typically get a little lost in the details.

We went to one absolutely stunning birthday party. EVERYTHING went along with the theme, down to the smallest detail. I was absolutely stunned & inspired about how much everything seemed to fit together so beautifully & brilliantly. This year I wanted to focus a little more on the details. I created a Butterfly Birthday Party Pinterest Board. It included DIY pins that looked like they wouldn't drive me crazy with complexity while also being cute.

That's why I decided this year I would make your party hats. I found these on Pinterest. They were adorable, & I knew I could easily create something fun & similar.

Rather than cutting out a ton of butterflies, I bought a butterfly punch from the craft store. While watching TV, I punched out beautiful, little butterflies out of scrap-booking paper. I was so excited that this DIY was really going to be as easy as it looked.

A few days before your party, with six other DIY activities to focus on, Nonnie casually mentioned that it might be easier to purchase purple & green party hats rather than trying to construct them ourselves. She was right, but purchasing party hats wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. It was then that I learned how hard it is to find/buy party hats in one color. I can't even tell you how many stores I scoured, searching for purple & green party hats. Every store had multicolored hats with patterns or hats in rainbow colors. Augh!

I turned to the Internet. With only a couple days before the party, I grabbed the only purple hats I could find that had free 2 day shipping. Green wasn't even an option. Sorry to all the kids who don't like purple.

When the hats came in, Nonnie took this DIY project right out of my hands & made them look beautiful. She used a glue gun to fasten my butterfly cutouts to each of the hats. They looked perfect.

In the end, the hats weren't the complete DIY project I planned, but you loved the butterfly birthday hats...& I think everyone else did too.

Oh, & by "DIY," I mean the only thing I did myself was punch out the butterflies. Ha! Thanks, Nonnie!

I love you so,

Mommy

Your First (and, God willing, hopefully last) Cast

Dear Em,
We're back. I hadn't planned to take a break from the blog for most of the month of July, but we've been a little busy. Our house is kind of like a bed & breakfast with a revolving door of fun & amazing visitors during the summertime. We celebrated an unexpected & little bit of a crazy Independence Day. Then work got super busy, & I left for an impromptu week-long work trip in Las Vegas. I came home to your kisses & hugs & this...

Yup, that's you getting an X-ray of your broken ankle. Sigh.

Needless to say, I have lots of catching up to do in my letters to you. I'll start with the biggest & most stressful news of this month. You have your first- & (*crossing my fingers*) hopefully last- cast. While you just got your cast a few days ago, the problem actually started on the 4th of July. 

You were flying high on candy & desserts, a lack of sleep, & the sheer happiness of having lots of littles to run around & play with. You sprinted up our cornhole board, & as you did your foot fell in the hole. Your body continued to fly in one direction while your ankle in the hole moved in the opposite direction. 

I didn't see it. Not realizing the extent of what happened to your leg, I turned to you in the aftermath & scolded you for walking ("I wasn't walking, Mom. I was running," you corrected me) on the cornhole board after I've asked you at least 57,000 times not to do so. In hindsight, you had probably just broken your ankle & a better parent would have done a little more consoling before starting an "I told you not to" tirade. 

Being the accident prone but tough little girl you are, you shrugged it off & told us you were fine two minutes after the cornhole incident...bumps & bruises & all. Also in hindsight, letting you jump on the trampoline 20 minutes later was probably a poor parenting choice. Either A. you had already broken your ankle during the cornhole incident & rolling your ankle on the trampoline probably just added to your injury or B. You hadn't yet broken your ankle but the number you did to it on the trampoline sealed the deal. 

Anyway, because I'm a superior parent, our night ended with me screaming "I don't understand why you can't stop whining & just be happy," to my child who I thought was just severely overtired but in reality was suffering from a broken ankle. Sigh.

Your ankle was swollen the next day, but you were able to put some pressure on it. We thought maybe it was just a sprain & decided we would get it looked at if it got any worse. The next week you seemed to be doing fine. You were mostly cooped up inside because of rain, but we went for a walk at the wall & everything seemed to be in working order. I mostly forgot about the whole thing.

I went away for my work trip. Daddy mentioned to me that you had a little limp on the phone one day. In my sleep deprived/work stressed/in a different time-zone state, the limp hardly registered on my radar (I just want to take a moment to interject- As a mom, there are some days I feel like I totally rocked parenting. Most days there are highs & lows. Then there are the days I feel like I totally sucked on all parenting fronts. This whole incident truly falls in the "I suck at everything" bucket. When I think of all the ways I failed you during this time, I am mortified). I told Daddy to watch out for your limp, & when it didn't come up again, I mostly forgot about it.

I returned home from my trip at 1am on Saturday morning & went to a friend's wedding later that afternoon. Most of the time we spent together that day was in my bed with me in a semi-coma state. I showered you with souvenirs & you said nothing about your ankle. 

So, it wasn't until Sunday (more than 2 weeks after you injured your ankle) that I noticed you were walking funny. You looked like you were bow-legged, walking all the way on the side of your foot with a severe limp. I asked you why you were walking like that & you gave me a "what do you mean" look. "Does it hurt?" "No." "Where does it hurt?" "I'm fine."

I made an appointment with your pediatrician the next afternoon. "I'm not injured," you told him as you limped out of the examining room. Laughing at you, he sent us to get X-Rays. While waiting for your X-Rays, you & I sifted through a Highlights magazine. You got the tiniest cut as you turned through the pages. You squeezed the tiny cut until you could see an even tinier amount of blood. I smiled to myself. My tough & fiesty little daughter had likely been walking around on a broken ankle for over two weeks, but a paper cut was going to bring her down.

When your pediatrician got the X-Ray results, he told us it was time to call an orthopedist. After calling 15 of them, I thanked God when we got an appointment the next morning (the first two I called were booked up until August & January respectively). The PA we saw confirmed that you had a small fracture & would need a cast. Luckily, kids heal super fast, & you should only have to wear it for 2 weeks. 

This was when you hit your breaking point. You had suffered through walking on a broken ankle for over two weeks without a complaint, but the clunky cast & ugly black boot were too much for you. The fact that you got a pink, waterproof cast did little to console you. You didn't want them, & you certainly didn't want to be seen in them. "I'm already different enough. I don't want to be different with a cast too," you whimpered about the fear of other kids seeing you in your cast.

My heart was broken. I had scolded you & overlooked your injury. You had suffered in silence for over two weeks. Seeing your disappointment in the cast was too much for me to bear. I was determined to make your cast at least as fashionably painless as possible. On the way home I picked up multicolored sharpies, puffy paints, & rhinestones. You let me be the very first to sign your cast, followed by Daddy, Nonnie, Charlie (we wrote in his name & paw print), & Trey (he sent us his signature & I tried to replicate it as closely as possible). You brightened up a little bit at the sight of the words & pictures on your cast.

 
When you went to sleep I got to work covering your boot in colorful rainbows, clouds, sunshines, hearts, flowers, polka dots, & xoxos. You woke up super early the next morning, excited to see the results. 

You still don't love your cast. It's clunky & hard to maneuver. It doesn't allow you to rock sparkly heals during dress-up. But you're super tough. You told everyone at story time yesterday that you just twisted your ankle (they responded with "I think you may have done a little more than that") as the kids oooohed & awed over your cast. You're still running & swinging & bouncing...just at a little bit of a slower pace. When we go for our neighborhood walks, we pull you around in the wagon. You & your cast will never be bestbuds, but like most things you're taking it all with fiercness & an adorable smile. 

I'm so sorry that I let you down, little girl. I do hope that you will forgive me, because you can never know how much my heart has broken for you over the past couple days. Lucky for me, your smiles have filled my heart right back up.

I love you so,
Mommy

Your "Twick"

Dear Em,
I was fixing your hair a couple weeks ago when I felt something that shouldn't be there. Sure enough, it was a tick. Fear instantly paralyzed my body. We live in a heavy deer tick area, & the threat of lymes disease is real. I immediately felt guilty for not protecting you better from this threat. We should have used more precautions while hiking. I should have found the tick sooner.

"Mommy, what is a twick? Why is the twick on me," you asked, sensing my nervousness & fear. I yelled downstairs to your Daddy. He looked up what to do when a tick is on your child while I took a picture of it with my iPhone (thank God for the technology & the Internet, what did people do without it?!). We determined the best way to remove it was to use a pair of tweezers. Man, that sucker was really attached to the back of your neck. I pulled & pulled & you squirmed & squealed. In the end I pulled off the tick's body, but I'm pretty sure the head (or a leg) remained (& still remains attached to you).

Our next action was to call the pediatrician, who got us in right away. Fortunately, as soon as I detached the tick body from your neck, you were no longer in danger from the tick. Unfortunately, your doctor was pretty sure it had been a deer tick. More unfortunate still, you would not let your poor pediatrician go anywhere near the tick bite. Instead you screamed & kicked & insisted that you didn't trust him. Sigh.

So, he sent us off with a prescription of antibiotics, three times a day for fourteen days. That was a bummer. Unlike most children, you hate the bubble gum flavored antibiotics. "Don't they have grape flavored medicine? I like the grape flavored medicine!" You tried to negotiate with me, but it hasn't stopped me from force feeding you the medicine you hate. Unfortunately for you, torturing you with bubble gum flavors is far less scary than the possibility of you having lymes disease.

The worst part is the piece of tick body that is still inside your skin. You scream your head off if I even look like I'm thinking about going near your neck. My sincerest apologies to all of our neighbors who surely must think that you are severely abused...or that we've adopted a wild & feral child. Apparently, you would rather have bug parts in your body than let me look at the back of your neck (Don't feel bad, Dr. Silversmith, she doesn't trust me either). Sigh.

Did I mention on the same day we found your "twick," you also found a new "toy" in the family room? "Hey, who left me this toy snake?" Daddy looked at what you held outstretched in your hand. "Emma, that's not a toy." That's right. Somehow a gardner snake had gotten into our house. There are days when living out in the boonies seems like it might not be the best idea.

So, we've taken to calling you Emma bug...since you're technically a big part Emma & a little part bug.

I love you so,
Mommy

"Not every day is going to go your way."

Dear Em,
I was having a rough day. You could see the stress in my face. You looked up at me & asked me what was wrong. I had to work to calmly reply. "Today is just not going my way."

"Well, not every day is going to go your way. You & Dad tell me that all the time."

I laughed. Sometimes I think God created five year olds so that they can tell people exactly what they need to hear. I couldn't change the way the first half of that day had gone, but I could choose how I would spend the rest of it. I chose you & I chose sunshine & I chose art. My favorite way to destress is to create something.

So, you & I picked up our chalk & headed outside to the front walk. We created pictures in the sunshine, side by side.

You know what? the day didn't end up being so bad. Thanks for helping me turn my rough days around.

I love you so,

Mommy

Life Lessons Learned from My Best Friend's Wedding

Dear Em,
I wasn't feeling well on Friday. I came home & basically went straight to bed, but first I popped My Best Friend's Wedding into the DVD player. The movie was made in the 90s (I think), & I can't believe how outdated it already looks. It's been a while since I've watched it, but in college it was my go-to chick flick. If I was having a tough day or just feeling off, My Best Friend's Wedding was my movie of choice.

As I watched it this time, I realized that it holds a lot of life lessons that I want to share with you (you will probably have to watch the movie to understand some of the references).

1.) You Will Never Be Jello. There will be times that you will love someone who will not love you the same way back. It will hurt & it will be hard, but it doesn't mean that you are anything less than absolutely & completely amazing. It doesn't mean that you're not enough or you need to change who you are. It's just that some people prefer jello while others prefer creme brulee. You will never be jello. You can take a moment to cry about that & the fact that a relationship just isn't going to work out the way you had hoped, but don't take too long. Somewhere out there is the person who can appreciate & love creme brulee. Somewhere there is a person who will love everything about you, a person you can grow with. Until you find that person, just be yourself. The most important love is the kind you have for yourself. Just know, in your heart, how amazing & beautiful & smart you are...& love yourself for it.

2.) Don't Be Afraid to Love...& Say It Out Loud. I think too many people are afarid of love, but if it's real & it's true, love should never be something you're afraid of. The people we love are only on this earth for a finite time. Things can change so drastically from one day to another. When you love someone, don't be afraid to tell them. They might not say it back, & that's OK. When you're talking to you friends & family, let them know you love them often. When someone has been on your mind, but you haven't talked to that person in a while, don't be afraid to be the one to reconnect. In my life, it's not the times I shared my love that I regret. Instead, I wish I could have said so many more "I love yous." For some people, the moment has passed, & I can't go back. I'm trying not to let those moments go by. I tell you I love you at least 67,000 times a day, because you make my heart feel so full, I can't help but share it with you. Also, I don't want even one moment to pass by where you don't know how absolutely & completely loved you are.

3.) Make Sure You Remember Your Friends...You'll Need Them. When you're in a relationship, things change. You have to make room for that other person in your life, but that doesn't mean you no longer have room for your friends. You'll need your friends, the people who knew you before you became part of a couple. Sometimes they will remind you of who you are. Sometimes they will be a sounding board to vent to. Mostly, they're the people you can have fun with, make precious memories with, & laugh until you cry with. Plus, if things don't work out with your relationship, you'll need their shoulders to cry on (as they'll need your shoulder from time to time as well). Take time for your friends. If you're lucky, you will spend some of your life's most amazing moments with your gal pals.

4.) Music is Everything. Music makes the best moments that much sweeter. Music can also bring a smile to the most awful day. Music is sometimes like an old friend, giving you a sense of warm nostalgia when an old, cherished song comes on. A new song can also be like a new friend, being just what you need as you create new memories. I can't quite put to words the way music has made my life...greater? But I think if you surround yourself with music, you will find pieces of happiness that you otherwise would not have discovered.

5.) I Love Julia Roberts. Ok, this one isn't exactly a life lesson, but it needed to be said.

You're still a little young for My Best Friend's Wedding, but I look forward to someday sharing it with you. Yes, it is going to make you think I am ancient. The cell phones in this movie are the size of bricks. But we'll save the movie for a crappy day. We'll make popcorn & we'll eat ice cream out of the carton. We'll laugh & we'll sing & we'll cry over Julia Robert's heartbreak...& hopefully our crappy day will feel a little less crappy.

I love you so,
Mommy

Please, Let There Be Sun

Dear Em,
It's funny. As I look back at my posts, I realize that the month of March is about the time I typically hit a wall. I try to enjoy winter. I really do. I enjoy the beauty of the fallen snow. I take you outside to play in the winter wonderland. We snuggle up inside with blankets.

By March, I'm over it. The time of enjoying winter has passed, & I just need some freaking sunshine. This year has been worse than most. We're supposed to be well into Spring already, but it snowed again this weekend. It didn't snow a lot, but it was enough to make me want to scream at the sight of more snow covering the ground. I glared at the snow on Sunday morning. The white quietness of our backyard should have dazzled me. Instead, I felt like the snow was mocking me, refusing to make way for my favored warmer seasons. I couldn't help but feel frustrated & defeated.

But then the sun came out. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a warm, sunny day. It was cold outside, like hats & coats & gloves cold outside. Except this brilliant beam of sunshine shone through our front door. I sat there, in our entryway, face upturned to the sunshine. You looked at me quizzically, thinking the floor of our entryway a strange place for me to sit. You joined me anyway, bringing with you the Ramona book we've been reading together. We sat there on the floor of the entryway reading & letting the sun warm & energize our bodies.

The ground may have still been covered in snow, but in that moment I had everything I needed. There will be life after winter. We can do this.

I love you so,
Mommy

Breaking Through the Negativity

Dear Em,
The last couple weeks have been tough...really, really tough. There was a lot of snow.

There was a lot of sickness. You were hit with a cruel double whammy of germs, starting with a stomach bug & then, almost immediately afterwards, strep.

We tried to make the best of Daddy's birthday week, but none of us were feeling very festive (in fact, you were sobbing as we made Daddy's birthday cake). Our fun & amazing daughter had turned into a moody, purple minion. Everything with you had become a battle, & I'm not proud of the ways that I reacted.

I'm going to blame it all on winter. Winter totally won. I raised our white flag.

I sobbed on the phone with your Nonnie. I couldn't help but feel like I wasn't anything more than an utter failure. I was surely failing you. I didn't know what to do, but what we were doing was not working in our home. When you think of our home, I want you to think of love above everything else. Instead, there had been a lot of yelling & defiance & tantrums & snippy comments & emotional breakdowns. You & I have had frequent battles of wills...except no one was winning. We had been focusing on the negatives for so long that I was having a hard time finding any positives.

Daddy & I talked about how things had been going. We weren't really sure what we needed to do about it (are any parents ever sure?), but we did know that if we expected you to be better, it needed to start with Daddy & I being better. We needed to change our own attitudes, & we needed to turn our focus back on the positives. We needed to put down our phones & turn off the TV & make family time a bigger priority. We needed to give you more positive encouragement, but we also needed to stop letting bad attitudes & frequent whining slide.

So, we spent this weekend as a family. We had a lot, A LOT, of talks about how to be good to each other & to our teachers & our friends. We reset boundaries & we recreated rewards. We reevaluated the way we talk & interact with each other. I wouldn't say after one weekend everything is sunshine & rainbows, but we're working on it. We're not giving up on each other, & I think that is what is important.

Of course it helps that the sun came out this weekend. The forecast predicted rain all weekend, & I was surprised when I saw bright rays of sunshine filling our backyard. We decided to bundle up & take an impromptu trip to the Charlestown Beach. My heart filled with so much happiness as we walked onto the beach together. The sun was doing it's best to break through the clouds, creating the most brilliant colors in the big ocean waves. It reminded me of our little family of three & the way we're doing our best to break through the negativity & find beauty in each other again.

You ran, filled with joy. "There's no snow on this beach! There's no snow!" We walked down the beach, collecting rocks & shells.

You & I felt brave with our rain boots on. We ran towards the ocean to splash our feet at the edges of the water.

A huge wave crashed on the beach & sent water over the protection of our rain boots & soaked our feet. It was freezing, & on a day last week it would have brought you to tears...ending our adventure. I watched you quiver, on the verge of crying, but then remember all of the things we had talked about this weekend. I watched you decide not to fall apart.

Hand in hand we ran back to the car, took off your rain boots, & turned on the heat. Unwilling to let our adventure end so quickly, we decided to head to George's for clamcakes & chowder. We had to take your wet socks off, & I was proud of you for walking happily into the restaurant with bare feet in your rain boots.

We ate clamcakes & chowder & played tic-tac-toe over & over again. You were an excellent sport, happy to celebrate whoever won each round.

We peeked at the beach as we were leaving George's, & Daddy noticed that the Block Island Ferry was coming in just past the jetty. We climbed the rocks of the jetty a little ways before picking a spot to sit & wait for the Block Island Ferry to pass by, just like Daddy did with his family when he was younger. We waved to the ferry as it passed us by, & you were thrilled to receive a wave from a ferry boat passenger in return.

We headed home after that, content with our impromptu adventure. My heart was so full knowing that even though there may be times that we lose ourselves, together we can always find our way back. Thanks for sticking by Daddy & I & helping us to find our way back. Thanks for loving us, even with all of our parenting imperfections. Thanks for helping us to fill our home with love & beauty. Thanks for choosing to break through the negativity with us.

I love you so,
Mommy