Lesson Learned

I came home yesterday after a particularly ordinary day and remembered we couldn’t park on our street all week due to paving. We parked a few blocks away at the family dollar, walked inside to ask if we could leave our car there overnight and then proceeded home. After begrudgingly making dinner, cooking the zuchinni too long and getting aggravated with myself for ever volunteering to work the concession stand at practice, I instructed the girls to head upstairs to change from their school uniforms to play clothes. Once again we headed outside on our walk to retrieve the car and I could feel the bad mood just creeping up inside me. I started to think about the two new projects I have taken on at work and all the things I am behind on. Just as I was to turn the corner, I turned around to count heads and realized Emmalee was lagging behind. Nearly a block away, she was crouched down writing on the sidewalk with a piece of chalk she must have had stashed in her pocket. Ever since my mom and I took the girls to see G-Force, she has been convinced she is a special agent with highly secretive missions to carry out. She slinks everywhere, is forever writing secret codes and gets in military mode, where she talks like she has been enlisted her whole life.

“Come on Emmy, we gotta get going”…I yelled back to her.

“Ok, mama – I am writing messages, here I come.”

We all packed in the car and made our way to football practice. I worked at the concession halfheartedly for an hour or so, and then annoyingly waited for the girls to help pick up trash.

We finally arrived back home when I really got irritated. I was tired, I was hot, I was hungry and I did not want to park two blocks away from my house in the dark.

I took a deep breath, parked the car and waited while the girls gathered the 42 pounds of crap they have to take with us everywhere we go, and made sure all the doors were locked. Cori started talking to me about a dog she saw at practice and to be honest, I kind of tuned her out. I was thinking about myself, about how much I had to do, about what a funky mood I was in for no good reason at all really.

As we started down the slope towards home I caught a glimpse of Emma’s “messages” in the light of the streetlamps. There scrawled in her adorable first grade script, every two feet or so, read a very elementary message, but one that made  a big impact on her mama……Have a good day.

That’s it.

Just Have a good day. To anyone that wanted to read it.

I imagine she made a few people having to walk blocks to their home that day stop and smile.

With that, my lips curled up, I got myself a little head start, and then yelled backwards “Last one home is a rotten egg” and took off.

Shortly behind me, and then in front of me, three sets of running feet and just enough giggles to push me into a good day after all.

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