wow

What a morning.

It started with my kids yelling at each other not 30 seconds out of bed, and so far has also included a certain kindergartner putting up every fight possible in my effort to get her on the school bus presentably and on time, a whole container of yogurt spilled on my kitchen floor, going out for errands and getting lost and driving around god knows where for 30 minutes, finally arriving at the elusive destination only to find out they wouldn't be open for another hour (I had checked the website which had no listing of this brand new store but all the hours for all their other stores in this area were the same so I foolishly assumed the new store would follow suit as well... wrong!), deciding to go to a different store instead of waiting around for an hour and then we got stuck in highway construction for ever, and the back up store of course didn't have what I needed. So we returned to the stupid first store because by then it was open and it was on our way home. Luckily they did have what I wanted and we were in and out of there quickly and on our way home.

Anyway.
Now I'm sitting in my driveway watching Sawyer ride circles around me on his bike. And this simple activity has pretty much pleasantly erased the annoyance and irritation of our morning. Did I mention how extremely not fun it is to be driving with a two-year-old in the back seat who not only talks non-stop, but who is still sometimes difficult to understand and who also insists you reply to everything he's saying especially the phrases you don't understand, repeating them over and over and over until you answer or acknowledge or comment on what he's wanting to tell you about... yeah, that's fun when you're lost and confused and already annoyed by the situation at hand!

But taking a break and sitting out here on this beautiful sunny day watching this kid and the joy he gets out of simply riding his bike in circles... it's the perfect cure to a frazzled grumpy morning.
His smiles are so contagious. He can't get enough of this bike. And today he's showing off ("Watch this Mom... Did you see that Mom??"), impressing me with his tricks, standing up on his pedals to ride, going so fast I can hardly believe he's still got any control over the tight turns he pulls off, skidding to a stop just in the nick of time before he hits my chair and then cracking up because I thought he was going to crash into me. Then of course, sporadically he jumps off the bike and moves onto shooting a few hoops or coerces me into whacking the tennis ball around with him, drags out the hockey sticks and goal and then he's back on the bike for some more laps. He's non-stop, definitely lives it up and enjoys every minute of it.
It's just so amazing to sit back and watch the enjoyment of a kid outside being a kid.
A boy being a boy.

Thought I'd share some of what was making me smile this morning...
(warning: I got a little snap happy.... and excuse the blurry shots; like I said, he likes to ride fast!!)
































































Next time I have a bad day I'm just going to stick my kid on his bike, let him go to town, and sit back and soak up the simple pleasures.