motherhood is easy when everything goes just right.
but it doesn’t. it’s the “doesn’t” times when i really feel like i’m a good mom.

today was a “doesn’t,” a “lemons”…a “how-am-i-going-to-get-through-this-day” kind of day. i had one of those sinus headaches where you just want to stab a needle into the hollow above your cheeks and drain the crap you know dwells there (i know, disgusting), and cubby is breaking molars that i’m expecting to come in shaped like saw-tooth daggers the way she’s hurting. my normally happy girl has been crying on and off all day, biting hard on anything she sees, wanting to be held constantly, throwing anything i give her on the floor (charming), etc.

so, it’s easy to get frustrated…to think i can’t do it.

but then i see it as a challenge…these are the opportunities i can prove to myself (and to her) that i am a fantastic mom. i envision my supermom cape (mine is royal blue, in case you wondered…with an “M” embroidered in gold thread), and i go above and beyond to do it right…to love her, to kiss her little blond head when she throws the teething ring i thought would soothe her on the floor in a fit of tears and tell her i’m sorry. that i love her. regardless of the tears and the whining.

we got through this day. cubby is sleeping, dinner’s in the oven, i’m one sudafed away from falling asleep, and i feel like i did it (without crying too!).

oh, and yes…we managed to catch a few smiles despite the tears today…
(i’ve learned her real smile is when her little almond eyes squint into tiny little slits…and it’s just a mess of creases and teeth. i.e.: bottom left square. that’s when she’s really happy. pure delight.)

and, we might be biased, but seriously…check out her lashes.

the supermom cape is folded away for another day…(say, when she’s 13 and thinks i’m seriously dumb) …and there’s a dvr’d episode of ‘deadliest catch’ waiting for b and i tonight. the headache is fading, and really…it’s not so bad.

high hopes in setting out to the beach for sunset tonight…only to be met with, like, monsoon rains when we got there.
making sweet lemonade from our otherwise lemon-ey circumstances, we decided to stay–found a make-shift cabana along with a super cool kid who basically gave the boys a free skim-boarding class. the rains died down a little, leaving this gorgeous periwinkle haze in the sky and a beach that belonged to nobody but us–beautiful and eery at the same time. cubby fell asleep in her little hooded sweatshirt and cuddled in the cabana with me until dark.

…and i am reminded, once again, as i look around at all the little lights from the big hotels on the beach that, while all the people inside are relishing in the beach’s beauty, they have to go home eventually. Me? Well, this place is mine…any time I want it.

So, I was in one of those I-wanna-redecorate-the-entire-house-but-I-only-wanna-spend-$20 moods yesterday which always leads to a call to my sister, the last of these calls being one where she (thankfully) talked me out of painting flowers all over Lainey’s beautiful-just-as-they-are-perfect-shade-of-pink walls. She convinced me to simplify the living room (a.k.a. get rid of needless crap), and I decided to top it off with rearranging the room which always tricks my brain into thinking I’ve completely redesigned something. The product may not look much different but look closely…

THE BEFORE: (notice the after-first-birthday pile of toys overflowing the wall cubby which makes our house look like FAO Shwartz)

THE AFTER: (problem solved with prying off weird scrolly iron things on bottom of coffee table and storing all toys in baskets under table. So much better!)

…and throwin’ in for fun: (just one of her many “looks”)