Back in the daily grind

Today started out terrible. Nothing terrible actually happened, but my horrendous attitude made everything seem super terrible. It's hard coming back from a long, kidless vacation. It's like I'm no longer accustomed to anything super challenging like preparing my own food, taking care of kids, or making my bed. Those things are way too overwhelming and require far more hard work and patience than what I can manage now. I texted Christopher something about wanting to give our kids away and how I'm not good enough to be a mother. Then as we were finally headed out the door (I say finally because it took us over 3.5 hours), with a shaky voice, I asked my sweet girl, "Abigail, do you like me?"  Without hesitating she said, "I love you a lot."  I burst out crying and we hugged and kissed for a long time. 

But of course I still lost my patience with her a million more times before the day was through. I'm pretty sure I'm just emotionally unstable although I blame my vacation for that. It can't be normal to cry in the car for ten minutes about how no matter how good I am as a mother, I will never be good enough to the level my kids deserve. Vacations (and holidays) really do that to me. I need to ban them. 

Anyways, we went to the library. We were on time for story time. Brady is actually really good at sticking around and somewhat paying attention. He participated in the shaky egg song. Even though he's hiding the egg in this picture.  Abigail played Legos while she waited patiently for a computer. Then Brady destroyed the Lego table and climbed all over the chairs while we waited for Abigail to finish playing the computer. 

Then we ran home to pack a quick lunch and met up with Elle and Jodi at the playground. Brady had fallen asleep on the way home (but then Abigail woke him up while I was packing food... Being all "but I woke him up because you didn't want him to sleep in the car."  Hmm yeah. Just kind of...) so he was actually awake enough for the playground. It was still covered in at least four or five inches of snow but the girls wore their boots and they were fine... It was a gorgeous day, we couldn't let some snow keep us away from the park!

Then the girls came back to the house and watched frozen since Elle had it from red box. Abigail had never seen it before. Only time will tell if she thinks anything of it. 

Then Elle went home, I woke Brady up from his nap, and we rushed to the dentist for our 4:30 appointment.

It was Abigail's first time and it was the most adorable thing you've ever seen. She hopped in the chair and instantly opened her mouth. And just kept it open... Indefinitely. 

They tried to do X-rays but her mouth is still to small I think?  After a few minutes she wasn't shy anymore and couldn't sop talking about her favorite colors and how she liked her purple bib and green sunglasses. 

And she loves holding this weird fanny pack kangaroo with a full set of teeth. She found it in the lobby and gave it to Brady to play with. But he didn't want it, so Abigail did a good job holding on to it. 

And because of all of the depressing texts I'd sent Christopher this morning, he suggested we go to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. So that's where we went after our appointments. Brady was wild. I realized I somehow left the house without a single binky so dinner was a bit stressful and hectic because I had to be more giving to Brady than what I normally would be. Typically I would just tell him he can't throw a plate on the floor and then I would give him a binky and he'd be fine. With no binky, I just let him throw everything on the floor. But all ended well. They overlooked my steak like they typically do (how do we both order he same cut of meat and both ask for it to be cooked "medium" and Christopher's is perfect and mine is practically well done?!) and the waiter insisted that they make me a new steak. When they brought it out, it was perfection and it also came on the plate with another loaded sweet potato. And they didn't take away my other steak and sweet potato so all the extra food was just a bonus for the trouble I guess. Since we'd ordered Abigail a sirloin and loaded sweet potato, that meant a whole lot of food. We've got a big to go box in our fridge full of sirloins and sweet potatoes. My favorite part is just the "not cooking" part of it all. "No cleanup" comes second.

Brady has reached the age where he cleans things up without being asked. He'll find a random lost sticker somewhere and he'll go throw it away without being asked. Or he will put his books back on the shelf they came from. Tonight I asked him to cleanup some shoes on the floor. Just to see if he would. He did. But then I guess he couldn't get all the shoes to fit in the drawer under the dryer because a few minutes later he was still in the laundry room... But putting all of the shoes in the actual dryer. I'll give him an A for effort. 

Looking back on my day it seems pretty great. And I know it was. Just like all of my other normal days at home with my kids. But goodness... today was such a struggle. Does anyone else have a hard time adjusting to normal life after a vacation? Everything just seems like soooo much work. And where the heck is all of my patience?!?!  

It'll get better, right?