Bubble day

I saw the other mom at karate today. I approached her after the class and apologized for the parking lot incident. She apologized too and seemed embarrassed. The baby was screaming, she said, and she'd had it. I told her I understood. We all have days like that.

Not that I could derive any lasting feeling from having restored Peace in Mommyland. It was barely an our later that I found myself turning into Screaching Mom, with two tired kids in the back rebelling against my every suggestion, and an equally frustrated hubby catching the brunt of it. It's been a rough couple of days, with worry and grief over my Grandpa's stroke yesterday morning, tinged with bitter disappointment about our anniversary getaway plans for the weekend being cancelled because of it, and guilt about being frustrated about the weekend when my family was in crisis. This morning we had a fabulous walk TO the grocery store, with plenty of blackberries along the way, and the kids were so good and cute in the grocery store that the tellers were actually calling people over to see how cute they were (I kid you not!). Then unbeknownst to me, Liam dropped his cookie out of the stroller on the way home and screamed "Back, back!!" all the way home, a normally pleasant 30 min walk.

By the time I met up with Michael at the end of the day, we had all lost it. Kieran was tormenting Liam who was refusing to stay buckled in his car seat. I started screaching at the kids, and Michael, who had also had his fair share of stress today, including several hours at the office on his "day off", said to me, "It's a bubble day".

"Huh?" I said, not having a clue what he was on about.

"A bubble day. Like what you wrote in your blog. We all need to have our lists above us so that everyone can know all the stuff we're dealing with and be gentle with us".

See, this is why I love this man. I have only been posting on the blog for a couple of weeks, and he's not only reading but gently reminding me of my own thoughts. I stood there for a couple of moments just thinking this over, letting the world stand still for a minute while the warm fuzzy washed around me.

"BUBBLE!" yelled Liam, happily.

"BUBBLE, BUBBLE.... POP!!"