Tonight Was Amazing

Sometimes, when you have a toddler-turning-preschooler, it's hard to find moments of peace in between the insanity of "I wanna do its" and "Nos" and temper tantrums that are all normal for this stage of life. But tonight was just magic.

To preface this, I have been REALLY sick this week. I woke up with a slight temperature Monday morning, took some Advil and felt fine so I went for work. Monday night that fever was over 100, and by Tuesday afternoon I had a diagnosis of acute bronchitis/maybe pneumonia. I was out of work for two days and pretty much couldn't move off the couch. So today, after finally being able to get back to work, I was feeling pretty relieved. (Note: I am feeling the side effects of doing too much too soon, my fever is back up over 100 again. Ugh.)

First, the day started off amazing. Angelica came in just before my alarm went off and woke me up saying, "Mommy, I want to snuggle with you."

Anyway, after picking up Angelica from school, I took her to the park. (I blogged about a trip to this very same park about a year ago and today I really marveled at the differences.) I love, love, love Daylight Savings Time because that means that it's still light out when I pick her up and we can do things like this. This evening was everything I hoped it could be.

• We fed ducks. It was the first time we've done that and Angelica was SO impressed by how close the ducks got to us. It was amazing to watch that happening through her eyes.
• We watched fish swimming in a lake and Angelica was so excited about it.
• We met a new friend. In fact, Angelica marched right up to that friend's dad and said, "Hi, I'm Angelica!" LOL...I was sure she was going to be shy, but now I'm second guessing that...
• I watched Angelica go down a huge tube slide about 100 times. The steps that I reference in that post (that she struggled with and I was scared of her climbing) from last year lead to this slide and she climbed them over and over, no problem. She also used to be terrified of this slide, but this time she kept going down, jumping up and high-fiving me.
• I sat next to her on the big swings, and I said, "Angelica, isn't tonight a wonderful night?" and she sighed happily and said, "Yeah, it sure is." I thanked her for spending the time with me and she said, "No, thank YOU." 
• Angelica let me push her in a baby swing (slowly -- my girl is not a fan of swings) and every time she swung toward me, she'd kiss me (a miracle for my non-affectionate one) and giggle wildly.
• There was a squirrel on a lamp post next to the swings chattering away and Angelica thought it was awesome. She also told me he was sad because he lost his drink.
• We came home, she ate tons of broccoli, exclaiming, "Mommy, I LOVE broccoli!" My healthy girl :)
• During bath time, she insisted on washing my feet and hands. LOL.
• She took turns reading stories with me at bed time. I read Ten Apples Up on Top, she read me Dr Seuss's ABCs, I read Are You My Mother, she read me Go Dog Go.
• She finished the night by asking me with her sleepy voice to rub her back "just for one more minute." 

People who say that the threes are worse -- I call shenanigans. If three is going to be like this, it's going to be amazing.

Nights like this are exactly what I envisioned when I first thought about having a baby...when I'd be able to just share in my child's joy and exploration, seeing things through her eyes like it's the first time all over again, and just feeling my heart burst with joy watching her become the truly wonderful little girl she's growing (and going) to be.