Last night I ended my blog with a heart-felt longing for a plain, old "good" day. Today, I got it. It wasn't perfect . . . I was there, after all! . . . but it was "perfect enough," as my counselors would say.
We didn't do anything too spectacular. The kids finished watching Finding Nemo that we started almost a week ago and didn't finish. (They don't like the shark part . . . or the angler fish part . . . or the whale part . . . too scary . . . so tell me again why they insist on watching the movie???)
Then we went to WalMart to get last-minute supplies for VBS. (Naturally, I forgot the sticky tack . . . looks like a trip to the Dollar Store before Monday!) We ran into my cousin whom I haven't seen since before my daughter was born, so that was very fun!
I put the air conditioner in the kids' room before nap time. I must say that I, personally, do not like air conditioners, the exception being when I was pregnant. (Women really are taken over by aliens at that time, and I implore every soon-to-be-father to be patient with the poor mother-to-be, regardless of how many times she may or may not have done it before. She really has no control over anything at that time, particularly her susceptibility to heat, smells, broken finger nails, bad hair days, Law & Order SVU episodes, and puppy pictures. PLEASE give her a break.)
On the topic of air conditioners, though, my kids take after their father in this respect and suffer greatly in the heat. Last night little Chinchita could not sleep, and when I finally tucked her in around midnight, she was drenched in sweat and looked miserable. I vowed I'd get the air conditioner in for them today.
Mind you, I've never installed a window air conditioner before and approached this task with trepidation. It took a little muttering, a little opening, closing, re-opening of the window, and a final smack to close the corner again, but I did it. Coolness for the kids!
In their now-comfortable room we read Curious George. Chinchita napped. Ranita and I did a Thomas puzzle for the first time in weeks.
We played in the pool.
I love our pool. It has a leak I can't locate in the air ring around the top, so I blow it up a minimum of once every day. The pump and filter are too small, so I have to clean that daily and replace weekly.
It is the best purchase I have ever made. (I say "I" because my husband at the time did not think we needed a pool. He didn't . . . we did!)
In the pool, we laugh. We frolic. We sing. We relax. We are free of email, texts, phone calls, Facebook updates, and even the radio. It is just we three. It is heavenly.
My son swam underwater for the first time today. My daughter, not to be outdone, learned how to blow bubbles underwater without inhaling half the pool.
I, for a moment, pitied my ex and felt that I did indeed get the best end of our divorce. It is true that he will forever be the "fun" parent, the one who shows up for semi-weekly Daddy Days and whisks them off to dinner at Applebee's and jaunts in the park and hikes along the bike path. He will forever be spared the day-to-day grind of broken glasses and before-bed toy pick-ups and being tired of being so darn responsible all the time.
But he'll never have an ordinary magical summer of day-after-day pool times. He'll never know just how remarkable it is to slog through the unending tedium and monotony of parenthood and get rewarded with an hour of perfection, right outside your back door, no traveling required. I really am the lucky one.
To top it all off, tonight my son picked up his toys. No fighting. I admit this resulted from a moment of brilliance on my part. (Don't be too impressed . . . my brilliance was preceded by one of my less-than-brilliant moments earlier in the evening . . . I pray they all balance out in the end!)
Anyway, Ranita is in a bellicose place right now, and tonight he "couldn't" clean up because he was protecting us from "bad guys" with a drumstick in one hand and a chainsaw in the other. I looked at him and said, "I know! Let's pretend all the toys in the living room are bad guys and you need to protect us by taking them all to jail!"
He went for it! So much so, that he even put the toys in the right places because some had to go to maximum security prison and some were only minimum security. The living room looks amazing!
A good day, indeed.
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