The other day I found myself curling like a cat and bending upside down like a dog in the middle of the children's section of Barnes & Noble. Birdie was entranced by a yoga book and begged me to do every single stretch and bend with her. So I did. And it was the most fun I have ever had in a book store, especially when we did the superman stretch.
Yesterday I let the girls smash ice cream on my nose because they thought I'd look like a clown, and I did. I drove a mile home with vanilla ice cream dripping down my face, and today I have a zit to prove it, but it was really funny.
And today, like everyday, I raced the girls back to the car after picking them up out of a sea of young and pre-pubescent kids. I made large windmills with my arms as I ran, knowing it would get a giggle out of Genevieve, and it did. And when we got back to the car, Beyonce was belting out, "I'm a single lady" loudly so I grabbed Mya by the hand and twirled her in the car. Embarrassed, she squeezed out a smile and whined for me to get in the car quickly. We danced with our hands in the air and bums twisting in the leather seats of the van as we listened to the rest of the song. When the song ended, Mya smiled, and I knew she had forgotten I had embarrassed her moments before.
My children are my excuse to be crazy and dumb. I get to do the silliest things with them everyday. I can act like a total idiot and blame it on them. It's the best excuse card in the world. Without asking most of the time, they force me to step outside of my comfort zone and have fun. They help me see the sun on a gray day, and they always remind me how great this job really is, even when it totally sucks because the great moments really outweigh the bad moments years after the fact. I often look back at Mya's toddlerhood and see her chipmunk cheeks and I hear her funny phrases, but I don't think of her tantrums--and man, that girl could (and still does) throw some epic tantrums. Thank goodness our memory has the ability to block out the bad stuff if we let it.
I love being a mom. I love that my kids told me I'm the "crazy old lady of our village" (from Moana). I am crazy, but it's worth it.
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"Be kind and considerate with your criticism... It's just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book." Malcolm Cowley