accept. embrace. live.

I've been feeling very unsettled or stressed lately.  Not sure why.  This morning, I sat down and started writing yet another post which would have ended up tagged with either "HTFU" or "pointless rambling."  Didn't have time to finish it, so I saved it as a draft.

This afternoon, I took my kids to the Gaylord National hotel, where they have all sorts of Christmas things going on.  It's a wild scene.  We've been looking forward to it for a couple months now.  It was crowded.  It was very expensive.  Before we got there, I was a nervous wreck knowing that my kids were apt to wander off at any moment, seeing some ice sculpture that intrigued them, or a decorated tree, and I'd then have to raise my voice.  Speaking loudly isn't something I'm able to do in my pseudo-girl voice.  We had to wait over an hour in line to get in to the ICE thing.  To the parent of a 5 and 3-year old, it was one big clusterfuck.

As we walked back to our car, I was choosing to fixate on all of the above in my mind.  As well as calculate their projected bedtime and how overtired they'd be tomorrow, due to the lateness of said projected bedtime.  My kids, on the other hand. were excitedly talking about how cool and great the day had been, and how they couldn't wait to come back next year.  And how cool the inside snowfall was, and how big the ice Grinch was, and how they got to go down the ice slide twice, and how high the fountains shot up, and how fast the lights flashed during the musical light show.  As we drove home, the two of them made a list and counted all the good things that we had done today, all the good things about the day.  They came up with 22 things.

I shook my head at myself, and decided to make it 23.  There's a neighborhood nearby where every house is a Chuck Griswold house.  I've always wanted to take them to drive down it.  Another 20-30 minutes isn't going to matter.  So we drove down it and we had to drive back and forth 6 times past one house, until my daughter (the 5-year old) was satisfied that her brother had seen the Thomas the Train with Santa hat.  As I was tucking her into bed, I told her that sometimes mommies and daddies learn things from their children.  I explained that sometimes adults think too much about the not-so-good things, and that she and her brother reminded me to think about the good things.  Her reply was that "adults are crazy sometimes."

So true, huh?