a glimmer

I had a good mom day today.

Before I had kids, when I thought of what it would be like to have kids, I imagined myself as a certain kind of mom. I thought I would be creative, spontaneous, fun even. Unfortunately the reality falls somewhat short. For instance last weekend I thought it would be fun and creative of me to dye Easter Eggs with the kids. So I hard boiled a dozen eggs, Googled egg-dyeing and came up with an oh-so-simple yet beautiful idea from Martha Stewart. That right there should have been my first red flag but this was supposed to be completely fool-proof. You mix a tablespoon of oil, a tablespoon of vinegar and a tablespoon of food colouring in a glass and then fill the glass with enough water to cover an egg. You dip the egg in, bring it out and voila a beautiful marbleized egg. In theory at least. I just ended up with oily eggs. And a tension headached from yelling at the kids to STOP TOUCHING EVERYTHING! So I fed Sebastian, gave myself a mini timeout, washed off the oily eggs and started over with rubber bands and food colouring mixed with hot water and an apology to the kids for yelling. It ended with 7 eggs and a cocktail.

But today was a good day. I took the kids to Winner's to return sunglasses and browsed through the breakables without anything being broken. Then to celebrate I took the kids to Starbucks for a hot chocolate. While we were there the kids found it highly entertaining to walk things over to the garbage can and drop it in. Bizarre and slightly gross but peaceful so I didn't complain. First they walked over their stir sticks, then they each asked for a "Starbucks napkin", specifying for me in case there were some non-Starbucks napkin options, which they promptly got up to throw in the garbage as soon as I set them down on the table. Then Ava was done her hot chocolate and threw away her cup and then Tristan, who, I'm guessing, was so caught up in the garbage-throwing frenzy threw away his cup even though it was still half full. I closed one eye and braced myself but since he didn't collapse in a puddle of tears and floppy limbs when he realized what he'd done and since this was the first cup of hot chocolate that wasn't drawn like a magnet to Tristan's pants, I didn't even care.
"Where do you think all that garbage went?" I asked the kids.
"Down. Down into the BIG hole," said Ava.
"What do you think is at the bottom of the big hole?
"A fire breathing dragon!" said Tristan.
"Really? A fire breathing dragon? What do you think the fire breathing dragon does down there?"
"Burns up all the garbage!" said Ava.
"And eats it too!" said Tristan. Pause. "Mom, can we see the fire breathing dragon?"
"Can we?" asked Ava.

On just about any other day if you saw me lifting my children and putting them head first over the garbage can you could rightly assume that I was seriously considering stuffing them into it. But today? Today we were looking for fire breathing dragons.