This morning was a rough morning. I could barely lift my head off my pillow. Raging headache. Stuffed nose. Eyelids that weighed a ton. Pressure everywhere in my head from my sinus infection. It was 6:30am, the kids had climbed into my bed and were arguing. Natalie had started singing a song to me “I love you sooooooo much, my love for you could fill 1 pot, 2 bags, 3 pots, 4 tea cups and 5 chevy vans”…..all the while Jacob was saying “no Natalie you can’t say pots again. You already said pot for the 1 number, so you can’t use it for the 3 number too.” Natalie ignoring him…..singing…..he getting louder trying to tell her why it didn’t make sense. And also trying to teach her about syllables because somehow in his mind that was going to help him justify arguing with her about it.” All the while my headache raged. Steve was already long-gone. He had headed to LAX to catch a 6am flight to Sacramento to be at a Youth in Govt. event which was a first for his school. How in the world was I going to make it through the day???

I sent Natalie off to the kitchen to get herself some cereal. Food always makes things better. Next thing I knew I heard arguing in the kitchen. Apparently Jacob had volunteered to help pour her cereal but she had a certain way of it being done and he wasn’t complying. So the arguing and Natalie’s crying continued. Grrrrrrr……..when Jacob came to tell me all about it I told him that I needed the gift of sleep. Thankfully then all was well for awhile and I got to sleep in.

But then the arguing started up again. Okay. Okay. It was time for us to get out of the house. Somehow that seems to work on off days like this. I’m not sure why…..but if one of them wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, it works to just get out of the house. It’s almost like it resets things in a magical way.

So I told them we’d start a fun new thing of visiting parks and discovering our favorite features of those playgrounds. So today we visited:

• Rocket Ship park, on Marine Ave. right off of Aviation Blvd. As we pulled into the parking lot they said “but this one isn’t new! we’ve been here before!”. Yes, I know. I know. But it’s been ages since we’ve been here. The kids’ favorite features: climbing through the hanging tire-things. And the spinning circle-snowman thing.

• Veteran’s Park in Redondo Beach, right by the pier. I think the last time I was at that park was when Jacob was less than one year old. I had met up with some Beach City moms that were from a Yahoo group I was a part of. That was an awesome group of all new-moms who supported each other as we all trekked into this new land of being a mommy. The kids’ favorite feature: the spinning things. They laughed their heads off as they went round and round and round, getting dizzier by the second. They seriously laughed their heads off!

We came home and we all took naps. And then the rest of the day was so much better! Jacob spent the rest of the day (seriously 4 hours!!!) quietly in his room engineering a really complicated Geotrax train track layout. Natalie spent the rest of the day quietly and happily cleaning her room and then playing vet, putting bandaids on her stuffed animals who were ‘hurt’.

And now thankfully I am starting to feel on the mend. Thank you God for carrying me through this day.