What I’ve learned about perfect days:
They are not sleeping in, enjoying coffee in silence, reading a book on the patio, going to the beach, having lunch with a friend, watching the sun go down, having a date with the husband, watching a movie and falling asleep spooning.
They were like that, before.
But today’s perfect day consisted of:
Being woken up at 3:30am because V’s diaper had leaked, and then dealing with the crying toddler for two hours. Eventually my husband came and we both held her and she fell asleep holding our hands.
Once she was finally asleep, we slept huddled together until 10am.
I did have coffee, but it wasn’t in silence. It was while holding the coffee in one and hand, and yogurt & strawberries in the other, and feeding them to the two year-old. My husband had been feeding her, but then the cat barfed on the rug. (Why will cats ignore an entire house of hardwood floors and instead vomit on the only square piece of carpet in the entire building? Or on the bed? WHY?!)
We watched some Sesame Street and then ran errands. She was such a pleasure to have as my companion for the day. We went to the post office, library, and car wash. She’d never seen a car being washed before, so I got to explain all the little things that happen as we watched my car through the window. She talked about it for the rest of the day. “Mommy’s car all clean. Mommy’s car, so much soap. Mommy’s car vacuum.”
We had lunch together and split burger patties. We sat outside and watched people going by. She talked to most of them.
We stopped at the park and she made a friend named Zane. They took turns riding his scooter and pushing Hot Wheels. He happened to have an Elmo ABC puzzle and then V thought he was the most amazing person ever. I sat beside his nanny and we became friends. I also got to read a little.
We came home, saw Daddy, and went swimming. We watched the sun go down together. It was fun, but she doesn’t understand that water is a killer and will catapult herself into the water without warning me. A couple of times, I wasn’t ready…and that was very stressful.
We finished the day with dinner and watching the “Uptown Funk” music video over and over and dancing.
Bath time, bed time, and now she is sleeping in my arms. Long lashes resting on her cheeks.
I look at things more now by how fulfilling they feel, rather than how perfect they seemed or would seem to others. It may not be how I’d spend an ideal day with no limits, but I never end a day like today feeling like I missed out on anything.
Despite the 3:30am wake up, cat barf and near drowning…I can attest that today was a completely perfect day.
small life, slow life 