It’s been a rough week here.
Lots of crankiness (everyone), tantrums (Baby), whining (Baby)(ok, and me), and just all around bad moods.
Yesterday was the peak of the crankiness. I felt awful. Overwhelmed. Defeated before the morning even really got started. I muddled my way through the day, eyes on the prize – the moment when I could sink into my couch and disappear into America’s Got Talent (I got hooked while on vacation last week. Poor Gymkana!).
When I’m that cranky, my patience is compromised. Baby’s whines are somehow amplified. Seriously. They drill into my brain until I don’t think I can take it anymore.
So at some point, just before Baby’s bedtime last night, I tuned out. She and M were playing on the floor so I sat on the couch and dove into my Twitter feed.
A few minutes later Baby’s exclamations pulled me back out of Twitter. ‘I did it!’ she was saying, ‘I made a tower!’
I looked up to see her stacking blocks constructed into a perfect tower. At first I thought M had helped. But he had since gotten pulled into his phone as well.
For the first time, she had gotten them all to stack perfectly. Every single one.
The smile on her face was radiant. Pride mixed with surprise. I’ll miss that smile when she someday, probably not long from now, gains the confidence to not be surprised when she succeeds (or the self-consciousness to not want anyone to know that she is surprised by what she can accomplish).
All night long M and I gazed at the tower, amazed that she had built it all by herself and sad that we hadn’t been watching as she did it. A small moment, not a huge milestone, but something we wished we had seen.
And that was enough to snap me out of my cranky mood. Today was not a great day, but it was better. I remembered that time spent with Baby is precious. She is growing quickly and if I spend too much time sulking or wallowing in my own crankiness, I might miss something important.
I’m always grateful for the small moment that breaks me out of a bad mood.