long days

I'm writing this less because I think it will be very interesting to the three people who read here who are not my husband, but because I want to be able to sit down and read this when we have a bad day. There are a lot of those, the days when you want to cry because all you want is a normal kid. Or you think there is really no way at all she will ever be able to make friends, let alone have a regular conversation with another kid. That she really will be wearing diapers when she enters college.

Today was a good day. She slept the whole night (well practically, and that one wakeup was completely Tessa's fault) in her own bed, until SEVEN AM. She ate breakfast happily, and drank her whole juice, which is laden with all her various vitamins and supplements and medicine and thus usually like pulling teeth to get her drink the whole thing. We went to one of those bounce house supercenter things, and she happily bounced, did the big kid obstacle course all by herself without me pushing her through it (like she usually does) and then was so proud of herself at the end that she let me high five her without acting like I'm a dork.

She let me change her diaper without too much argument. She pushed the kid cart all around Whole Foods without (intentionally) knocking anyone over. Then she put me to shame and actually put the cart away after we paid at the checkout (she didn't learn that one from me, unfortunately.) She waited patiently for her snickerdoodle, and then only ate half of it and saved the rest for dinner.

She napped. She napped.

She grudgingly shared her favorite doll and doll stroller with her younger cousin. She let her grandmother sew up the enormous hole in her favorite (as in, has never slept without it, ever) blankie. She told me, "The sewing machine scares me when it goes quack quack quack," and opted to watch TV in my room instead of having a meltdown because she was scared and couldn't tell me why.

She took one look at the bandaged up blankie, and simply went to her room and found a different blankie that will apparently now be the Blankie. No tears, no scenes, just "Please put that blankie away, mama."

She hopped in her bath, no whining or arguments. Let me wash her hair, no tears, no scenes. No screaming from the tub designed solely to wake up her sister. The PJs she wanted to wear didn't fit anymore, so after a calm discussion about what 2T and 3T mean, she laid out the 2T pajamas in front of TJ's door so that she can have them now. This, from a kid who screams when TJ so much as looks in the direction of her room or her toys.

She is sleeping soundly, cuddled up with the new Blankie. I don't know how long it will last, but I gotta say, today was a good day.