An Adventure Day

I'm going to start this by saying I'm beat.  Like totally exhausted from a beyond crazy day.  I had an adventure day.  Rather my baby boy E had an adventure day.  Although I should correct myself and not say "baby boy" because as Mr. 2 1/2 year old informed me today, he's "not a baby anymore mommy.  I'm a big boy."  And he's right.  My big boy spent the day with mommy driving all over tarrrrr-nation (as his big sister calls it) for some special events that I was helping coordinate for one of my clients. I totally dragged the poor kid from store to store starting at 9:15 this morning until 5pm tonight.  The kid had a 9-5 work day.  And he LOVED it.

I have to admit, I was a little stressed out knowing that I had an insane day in front of me and knowing that he was going to be with me.  Just starting with the concept of constantly have to take him in and out of the carseat everytime we made yet ANOTHER stop was enough to make me shake. Forget about any of the 500 bags and boxes I had in my car that I'd have to shlep as well.  And yeah, was that part a total pain in the arse?  I won't lie, of course it was.  But I wouldn't have changed it and to be honest, having him with me made the day so much better. Better than I could have imagined.

Sometimes I think we exert so much energy worrying about the "what-if's" than focusing on the here and now.  I'm totally guilty of it, I'm not afraid to admit it.  I put so much energy into how difficult the day was going to be instead of embracing it and saying BRING IT ON.

E turned out to be my little helper, putting materials on tables, holding and handing things to me that I needed, and greeting people with his infectious smile and beyond cute way. In watching him and seeing the sparkle in his eyes, I realized how important he felt, and how special.  When your 2 1/2 year old is this proud of what they're doing, it's impossible to not step back and let the stress go.  So I dragged him from place to place, and instead of grumbling about having to do it, we made jokes, we giggled, we high-fived (if you count him yelling - you're too slow!), but most of all, we smiled.

At one point today, he ran up to me and said "hey mommy? you're awesome!"  I was like what did you say?  And he said it again.  And then he hugged me.  And in that moment, my heart swelled and the chaos of the day totally didn't matter.  I had my baby/not a baby anymore/baby with me and all he cared about was that I was his awesome mommy and that we were on an adventure day.  G-d I love that kid.

Maybe there's something to this whole bee positive thing.