A moment of grace

Today's biggest battle (and, truth be told, the biggest battle I fight most days) was getting Little dressed and out the door for our morning adventures. She is always too busy or comfy or contrary to get moving. The fight this morning was over the color of her clothes. They weren't purple. Tragic. I tried to compromise with multicolored striped pants (which included purple) and purple socks, but it wasn't good enough because her shirt was red. The whining and crying ensued. We were going to be late, so I just grabbed her, dressed her despite her protests, and went to get her shoes. She tried to grab her purple flip flops, but they were stuck on the shoe bench and she couldn't pull them out. In her usual fashion, instead of asking me for help, the hysteria grew, and she was immobile. I had enough of her crying and whining, and I told her so. "I've had enough!" I said, and I picked her up and wiggled her shoes on her feet, despite her protests. She instantly picked up on my frustration with her, reached her little arms up, grabbed onto my neck, and held on for a big hug. Then she pulled my face down for a kiss... two kisses, in fact, because the first one wasn't straight onto my lips. Then she asked me, as I carried her out to the car, "are you better now?" Of course I felt better! All my frustration with her melted away. It got better. She said she was sorry. I told her I was sorry for getting mad at her and asked if she felt better, and she said "yes. Let's make big smiles together." So we smiled at each other in the rearview mirror as we drove away from home... and the smiles turned into silly faces, and all was forgotten.

I know that one day, hugs and kisses won't solve all our problems, and silly faces in the rearview mirror will not last forever, but I am very thankful that today, those things did fix everything.