dontwasteyourcancer: the joy of a swing.

today happened to be one of those days: wide open and no set plans. i like these kind of days. sometimes they make me sad and i feel like i have no friends but other times i embrace laying in bed and watching cartoons with my family. drinking a couple more cups of coffee than the typical morning. but laying around all day is probably not going to win me any "mommy of the year awards" so we headed to story time at the downtown library. of course there was not story time today at 10am. so we read a few books and then headed to the children's museum. a entire kindergarten class was there for a class trip and no joke they were such sweet kids. a few little girls helped ava get one a slide that she could not reach on her own. the girl looked over at me and said, "nothing i wont do for a little baby." i melted because little baby she was talking about was my girl.

we headed to the post office to get a few stamps for mother's day cards and on our way got a little sidetracked by kline's ice cream. the featured flavor was: peanut butter chocolate. um, i am so done. that is my all time favorite flavor ever. so we got ice cream at 11am. that's cool i think. it was nearly noon. justin has been helping a friend paint a house that he is flipping and the rainy weather has made it hard to paint...he was finally able to do it today. so we decided to surprise daddy with lunch but when we called to make sure he was there...we got a little stressed out husband on the phone b/c the paint sprayer was broke and he was a little annoyed. so we we turned around and headed home (we are bringing him his lunch when ava is up from her nap).

ava got a little mad about life and being confined to her stroller. begging me..."walk momma...please, walk momma" after trying to explain to her that road was busy and that she would end up wanting me to hold her as soon as she had her much desired freedom. i let her out. for about 3 minutes she walked right next to me and discovered her pockets in her shirt and walked with her fists inside her pockets and telling me over and over..."mommy pockets. see pockets." after those 3 long minutes she put her arms up and said, "hold you mommy. please hold you." to which i scooped her up and reminder her that the correct way to ask is..."hold me please mommy." she repeated that and we continued to talk. i often think that it is far more entertaining and sweet to not correct her grammar.

right before we came upon this tree swing my arm was officially aching. we walk past this swing almost everyday and for the first time she asked, "swing. oh, please swing please." thankfully the swing is the front yard of a house that young life leaders live in so were not trespassing or anything like that.

see that picture below...well that is joy. in case today is hard and sad and dark and your anxious about your life and wish things were a bit brighter...remember where joy comes from. for us today it came from a swing. i try not to be cliche about anything. really i don't. but today i needed this. i needed to stop (even though i wanted to get home to put her down for a nap) and let her swing. experience the wind blowing her thin little hair. she always laughs when the wind blows her hair.

a little nervous and thrilled. she kept begging..."higher mommy. higher mommy." but since this swing was clearly not designed for little kids i was a little leery of her letting go and falling a bit too far to the ground. but she held on and she laughed. she laughed really hard. when your child laughs it does something inside you. something seemed to tighten a little. i love this little person more than i knew my heart could hold and i need to hold onto this morning and this walk and this swing and this moment forever. she was happy. nothing unique or profound about it. just pure happiness. all from a swing. a swing we have walked past everyday since we moved here.