The boys didn’t nap today, which doesn’t make any sense because they didn’t sleep well last night. The weather, however, was thankfully, unusually warm so right about the time we were all ready to kill each other we put on our shoes and coats and walked to the small park down the street.
We were having a lovely time at the park … until I looked at Sophie climbing up a ladder and noticed that the back of her pants were soaking wet. She didn’t even tell me she had had an accident.
So I told her we had to go home. I reminded her that she was almost 4. “No, we cannot come back to the park after we change your pants,” I said. “I’m not very happy with you right now,” I added.
Halfway home she ran over to some grass and picked a dandelion (in January). She spotted another. “No,” I said. “We’re not stopping every 10 seconds to pick dandelions and pinecones. You’re soaking wet. We have to go home.” I reminded her that I wasn’t happy.
We walked for a little while as she clung to her little dandelion.
“Mama?” she said.
“Yes?” I said.
“Do you know who I picked this dandelion for?” she said.
“Who?” I said.
“You,” she said.
I thanked her. We kept walking.
A few moments later she said, “Does that make you just a little bit happier?”
It is so difficult to be mad at her sometimes.
“It gives one a sudden start in going down a barren, stony street, to see upon a narrow strip of grass, just within the iron fence, the radiant dandelion, shining in the grass, like a spark dropped from the sun.” —Henry Ward Beecher