Trio

Yes, I'm adding entries twice in one day.  My last entry was dour, I do acknowledge.  But it's where my head is.  And yet, after I published it, I realized I never blogged about Saturday, despite taking notes in my iPhone at the time.

Saturday evening, J went fishing, so I took Mabel out for a girls' dinner at the gourmet hot- spot of Panera. :)  They've got a good kids' menu and happen to offer a mac n' cheese dish (for adults!) that I was craving like a bee wants honey.

Before we left the house, I had been stressing and was upset about a million and one things.  I got Mabel up from her nap and brought her downstairs, only to have the sweetest thing I can imagine happen.  I should backtrack and report that Mabel loves giving kisses-- she is not very discerning in whom she chooses for recipients either.  But we usually have to ask: "Can you give Nana a kiss goodbye?"  That sort of thing.

On Saturday, however, as Mabel sat on my lap, she peered into my eyes for a solid three seconds.  And then, on her own whim, she planted a ginormous wet one on my face-- partially right on my mouth, and partially on my cheek.  And then when I gave her one back, she gave me another.  Mabel cuddles up to us all the time, and will give hugs freely, but the unrequested kiss made my moment, my day, my week, my month-- possibly my year.  It was, in my mind, as if she thought, "Here I am sitting with Mama.  I should show her some affection."  Pure delight.  Times like a hundred.

The second event in the trio of things that made me melt in that two- hour time span was her making raspberry sounds in the backseat the whole way to Panera.  Sure, she's made that sound before, but she usually hunts for a reaction from one of us.  This was, instead, unadulterated, pure fun in her car seat-- just cracking herself up over and over.  She didn't need an audience.  I can't express the second- hand joy I feel when I see Mabel experiencing joy.

And the most goofy but awesome part of this trio happened at Panera.  It's a tall order bringing a toddler to a place where she just wants to run freely when I don't have J or anyone else with me to fetter her to us.  She kicked and squirmed the whole time I held her-- in a long line to boot.  Mabel annoyed me with her wanting to run to the kitchen in back, and initial refusal to sit still.  But once the food came out and she could chomp on that coveted grilled cheese, all was good again.  Mabel looked up at the bright lights above her head while she chewed, and I gave her neck a slight tickle.  After hearing her roar laughing, I did it again.  And then she starting nearly ASKING to be tickled.  She would look at me, very strategically and dramatically look up, and wait for me to attack.  Each time we would see how long she could stand it before breaking.  I've never had so much fun at Panera, or probably out for any meal, for that matter.

When I put Mabel to bed that night, I didn't feel the exhausted relief I sometimes feel at her bedtime.  I wanted her to stay up.  I knew she couldn't of course, but I felt like a kid whose pal had to go home.

The little trio made me smile for a while.  I scurried to enter the events into my iPhone and shortly fell asleep watching Bridesmaids, into the slumber of a content mom.