The Wink

Saturday night Sean had a Cabin 3 gig at Davidson Brothers. Normally I would have taken the girls to the 6pm performance, which makes for a great dinner out and a chance to rush the stage. They love hearing him play and he loves having them in the audience, but we’d spent more than 3 hours at a tubing place in less than perfect weather, so the prudent thing to do seemed to be to call it a day.

There was absolutely no fight at bedtime, so the kisses I planted on their foreheads happened after they’d already slipped off to dreamland. I padded downstairs to write a post about a bedtime that didn’t go as smoothly. Writing about these moments that don’t fit nicely into the “I did a great job” column of my internal grading of my parenting is a strange thing. There is an incredible release and, in some ways, a chance to forgive myself. The words flowed freely, as did the tears.

I put out a tweet and then leaned back into the couch. The soft glow of the lights from our tree lit my toes. I smiled thinking of the girls’ painted toes (Thanks, Ashley!) and I hopped on the computer to see if I could find some sort of girly thing to do with the girls off of Pinterest. A glance at Twitter and I saw a few responses to my post, a few hours later I had an email from the editor of the Huffington Post’s Parent site and then yesterday I lived a day that involved Finley’s face and my post appearing on the Huffington Post site.

I can’t quite wrap my mind and heart around this turn of events. The only thing greater than my own delight is the excitement of Briar as she grasps on a big girl level what has happened and the exclaims from my friends. I am so grateful to have this space and to share it with so many of you. Go have a look and leave a comment if you feel the spirit move you.