569. The gift of passing from this world to the next. A dear friend's mom, also mother-in-law and grandma to their family, left this world today ending her battle with cancer. So grateful that she is no longer suffering the way she has been for what seemed to be endless months. Our thoughts and love are with their family tonight.
570. Relishing the moment of how a passing of one life makes many stop and appreciate the existence of living and the lives of those we share this world with.
571. Pushing through a challenging morning this morning to end the workday with smiles.
572. Getting home early today with Lily and getting to be the one to help with homework and getting dinner started, a very welcome role reversal.
573. Teaching Lily how to write a letter and address an envelope - her first one all by herself with sender and addressee. I love letter writing and was so excited to give Lily the tools she needs to hopefully not let this art be forgotten in this age of technology.
574. Working through frustration with Lily in a different way tonight - it's amazing what happened when I reached out for her hands to hold them as I talked instead of me getting just as frustrated as she and both of us escalating to a total shut down of noncommunication. Lily opened up to me instead, so I learned that her frustration came out of worry that, "I should know how to do everything already because I'm almost seven years old now," as she grew increasingly upset that she didn't know how to write that letter I was tyring to teach her about.
575. A quick escape to the park in the moonlit night with Lily, Emmy and Molly between dinner and bath time.
576. Andy diffusing a repeat of last night. My heart goes out to all single parents who don't have the luxury of another parent to help when things get difficult.
577. Learning from Emmy and her communication style tonight that she can't immediately sit down to eat dinner as soon as she walks in the door. I think I discovered what she needs from me is a few minutes of time on my lap to decompress from the day and read a quick story before we launch into the routine of the evening. This was an AHA moment tonight that I think was an essential discovery to much better nights and quality time together. Much like I am learning what I cannot compromise on in these precious minutes and moments that make up a day, my children are learning (and teaching me!) about the same thing - our parallel journey.
578. Second (and third, fourth, fifth, etc...) chances. I am truly a lucky mom and wife.
579. A woman at work remembering how delicious I thought her leftover muffins from a meeting were last month and bringing me my very own today - a banana chocolate chip from Paradise Bakery.
580. Sharing that muffin with three other people so I could still indulge, but while also supporting my healthier choices.
581. A power nap with Lily at bedtime so I can now plow through the dinner dishes and get ready for another day tomorrow.
582. Eating dinner with chopsticks tonight that Lily put out at each of our seats because she, "just wants it to be a fun dinner night tonight." I forgot about this one until I just started doing dishes a few minutes ago:)
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