Wednesday was, overall, not a stellar day.  Really, it started Tuesday night.  All I wanted to do was talk on the phone to Steve for five minutes.  Abigail did not want me to talk to Steve for five minutes, apparently, so she started wailing.  I finally got Abigail and Gracie down to sleep and hoped that things would be better in the morning.  They weren't.  Gracie woke up on the wrong side of the universe.  She was angry because, God forbid, the shirt I laid out for her to wear didn't have sleeves.  Oh, that agony that I put her through.   We got through that and then, of course, she wanted to wear a sweater, but not just any sweater, the dang striped sweater that I had no idea where it was.  Gracie has days like this.  I have days like this (more often than I care to admit ).  I know that the best way to handle Gracie on days like this is just to talk rationally to her and give her some juice and a snack and she usally comes around pretty quickly.  On Wednesday, did I do this?  No, I did not.  I lost my temper with her, which just made things worse.  By the time we left for zoo camp, I was not exactly in the best mood.  And neither was Gracie.  And honestly, until we got into the parking lot, I wasn't really sure who was going to go to zoo camp and who wasn't.  Emmie said that her stomach was hurting again.  Ruby said hers was bothering her, too.  And Gracie said that her leg was sore.  I thought there was a high probability that none of the three of them were going to actually get out of the van.  As they often do, all three of them surprised me - they all hopped out without a complaint.  We hit a lot of traffic on the way there, and we were running a little late to start with, so by the time we arrived, the drop-off time was over, so I parked and walked the girls to their classrooms.  It wasn't a big deal because Abigail and I were planning on staying at the zoo for a while anyway.  We went to the education center and they walked Ruby to her class right away.  Emmie and Gracie had to walk a way to their classroom since it was in the farm section.  Abigail and I followed  - I wanted to let her ride the train which runs around the farm.


Abigail and I wandered around a few of the exhibits, then we bought our tickets and rode the train around. It was very, very hot and Abigail was starting to look very, very tired.  So, we wandered into the Farm Expo building to go to the bathroom and look at a few of the exhibits in the cool air coniditioning.  Everything was going fine until Abigail spied a water fountain.  What she wanted to do was to push the button to start the water and drink out of it at the same time.  The problem was, the fountain was just a little bit too tall for her to accomplish this.  And she DID NOT WANT HELP.  She was very adamant about that.  So, here's what followed.  First, she tried to push the button and drink facing forward


Then, she tried turning around and pushing it with her back (I'm not exactly sure why she thought this would help...)


When that didn't work, she threw herself on the floor and commenced throwing the biggest temper tantrum of her life


There was screaming, there was kicking, there was thrashing around like the world was ending.  You know, typical two year old stuff.  Finally, she calmed down a bit


I thought the fit was waning, so I picked her up and took her outside.  I was wrong, very wrong.  Evidently, the fit was just beginning.  After about ten minutes, she calmed down enough that I could get her in the stroller and we left the zoo.  Quickly.  We went back to my sister's house and hung out for the rest of the afternoon, but Abigail was in a less-than-jovial mood for the rest of the day.  The big girls were not much better when they came home from zoo camp.  Gracie and Emmie did make a cool craft at camp.  Here's Gracie with hers:


But, all four of them spent the better part of the evening squabbling with each other.  Emmie even said at one point, "Hey, Aunt Daffy!  Take a picture of us fighting!" So, of course, I did


Gracie spent the majority of the evening insulting everyone in her path.  It was not pretty.  By the end of the day, I was ready for the whole thing to be over with.  Suffice it to say, I finished off the day in tears, feeling, as I often do, like an abject failure as a mother.

But, even though it was a hard day, there was still some beauty in it.  Abigail fell asleep at 7:30, much much closer to her regular bedtime than the 11:00 p.m. bed time hour that she's been keeping for the last several days.  We spent a lot of time on the front porch, and even though it was hot, it was still full of wonder


And beauty


and curiousity


and an abundance of nature's gifts


I just love a flower just past its prime...


And Abigail's savage beast of a temper was soothed by the simple act of washing dishes in her Aunt Bronie's sink, feeling the afternoon sun streaming in on her face


Could there be a more simple pleasure?


And the last thing that Gracie whispered to me before we finally fell asleep was, "Mommy, I love you." and I smiled and thought to myself, "Tomorrow will be a better day." And even though the day was hard and I was glad that to see it ending, it couldn't have ended on a sweeter note....


Steve, I really, really, really miss you!