Perfect Day

I just sent the boys up to bed & am basking in the wonderful, warm afterglow of a perfect day...

We made our 1st summer visit to Brookfield this morning w/Aunt Sandy, Addy & Aunt Jen. Even though the drive there took forever, even though the place was mobbed w/school kids on field trips, even though I vastly underestimated the amount of juice I needed to bring w/me, we somehow managed to have an amazing time.

Everyone stayed awake the whole way home, a special treat meaning Mommy still got an hour and half of nap time to recharge, something that almost never happens when little boys have the chance to doze on the 45 min. drive home.

After nap time,we didn't have the usual long stretch of "free time" to fill before Daddy gets home b/c we had a playdate w/our favorite neighbor friends, Joseph and Nora. In fact, the afternoon flew by and it wasn't until Andy started asking for dinner that I realized it was 5 o'clock and time to head home. While we waited for Daddy to arrive, we sang and danced to "alligator, alligator eat 'em up, eat 'em" until we fell down laughing and gasping for air and then Andy leaned over, pressed his forehead against mine and sighed "I happy Mommy".

Then, in a rare moment of total spontaneity, I scraped the usual pajamas-stroller walk-songs-books-bed routine and suggested we go out for a special family ice cream treat in our jammies. The boys could not have been more thrilled, Andy exclaiming "I LIKE IT!" w/every bite and Aidan shrieking his most excited baby shriek.

After a quick walk in the stroller, they both went happily off to bed, Aidan calmly sucking his thumb, Andy dragging his blanket behind him. I thought to myself that I wish I could bottle this day up and open it from time to time, like in the middle of a boring winter day, when both the kids are crabby and sick of playing inside or 10 years from now, when the kids idea of a perfect day is all about friends and I can no longer remember all the words to the "alligator song" or why exactly it made us laugh so hard.

Since I know of no such Perfect Day Bottling Device, I decided I had to sit down right away and try to write down why this day was so special b/c I want the kids to know that in between the bad days and the busy days and the up-and-down days and the just plain dull days, we had some special days too, when the magic of simply being little boys was enough to make an entire day perfect.