A Watery Day

The mood around the Valente household today seemed to reflect what was going on outside - a bit dreary and wet. Now, to be fair there were moments when the sun broke through (like right now as Abby is dancing to "The Bunny Hop", wearing only underwear and a superhero mask), but even those sunny moments could turn on a dime today.

It began when I had to run some errands this morning and apparently Abby's guitar decided to attack her toe. It became more of a problem when she realized that Mom was not around to offer comfort. I came home to find a teary Abby and an "at-wits-end" Dada. This only compounded when Abby saw Jason's hat. See, today was commencement at the college where Jason works and he was required to be in full academic regalia. This included his Master's tam, which Abby fell in love with. There were a few adjustments that he'd wanted me to make to it, and this plunged us into another round of sobs as she realized the hat was "hands-off" for her, but Mom got to play with it. Since she was partly mad at me, cuddles weren't going to work, so we went with a popsicle.

Next came the bath. I won't go into great detail, but let's just say it started great, but didn't end well. Luckily, I was almost finished with the hat and could take over. I dried the kid (and the new round of tears) and we headed downstairs for some lunch. It was at this point that I began thinking an afternoon rest-time would be a very, very good idea. So, as Jason left for graduation, Abby and I went upstairs to lay down in her bed. We did have about a half an hour of quiet time, and then my suspicious little miss began to wonder what exactly was going on. It didn't take her long to realize we were actually resting and  she needed to put a stop to it - quickly. She did this by telling me that she was "so tired" and that she wanted to rest on her own. As she shoved me out the door I wasn't buying it for a second, but I was happy to head downstairs by myself - after all, I had stuff I wanted to do today too! It wasn't even three minutes before I heard her follow me down the stairs.

Abby leading our dinner prayer.

The rest of the afternoon is a blur of me trying to work on a sewing project (something for Abby), while alternating between keeping Abby busy and comforting her when she became frustrated or got an ouchie. Things got a bit better once Jason got home, she even treated us to a lovely dinnertime prayer that included family and friends (followed by the J-E-S-U-S song which always ends with a spirited "Amen! Let's eat!"), but Jason has another function this evening for work and frankly I'm a little leery of how bedtime is going to go. Maybe she got all her tears out throughout the day, or maybe she was just priming the pump, but no matter how it goes I know we will be fine and tomorrow is another day, and for that I am very thankful!

She looks so peaceful here, doesn't she? Did you notice
that she's looking at herself in the mirror?

Here's my sewing project. I made her a resting mat, in the
hopes it will encourage resting. Looks like it's working, huh?