I've Had Worse Days

So Mother's Day is over.

It was mostly a really nice day--David worked hard to make it nice for me. He fixed breakfast and fixed dinner and took charge of all Code Brown Situations. (Perhaps because I threw a bit of a fit on Saturday and said, "You know what I want for mother's day? To not have to deal with anyone's poop except my own!"). The girls had sweet homemade gifts they'd made at school, and David also got me a book I wanted and some plastic tumblers for summer drinks outside and helped the girls make me a card.

Also there was a mimosa waiting for me when I came downstairs--my favorite kind of breakfast!

We spent the morning at the Botanical Gardens. It was lovely and even warmer than I'd expected. 

Coco was supposed to nap in the stroller but was too excited by the lovely flowers and the people watching. 

She was content to watch her sister run around, though, and Zu was good about staying close to us except when she took off by herself across the docks in the Japanese garden.

She made her way back into my good graces when she peed on the big potty, though!

By the time we circled back to the children's garden (she's obsessed with the cave--"The Tunnel!" she calls it), it was time for lunch and Zu was getting cranky. 

She wanted a snack but we hadn't planned to be at the gardens that long and hadn't packed anything. Fortunately, there was an apple in the diaper bag from Wednesday that was still perfectly good. We used it as a distraction to keep her from stripping off her clothes to get in the sprinklers there, and headed out.

(All that remained of the apple)

After the gardens, Coco immediately fell asleep in the car and David needed to run to Home Depot, so we decided that I'd drop him off and then go to Sonic to get us limeades (because Sonic is in the parking lot of Home Depot) and then wait in the car for him to get finished. Zuzu wanted to go with David into Home Depot, so I said good-bye to both of them and cruised over to Sonic for strawberry limeade (and cheddar bites because it was a holiday).

When they came out of the Depot, Zuzu was doing her fake-crying thing so I asked David what was going on.

"You're not going to believe what happened," he said.

They were in the bathroom tile aisle and Zuzu wanted out of the cart. David said that she could get out if she stayed close by him. She was good about this, but then she saw the display showers and she wanted to check those out.

She stepped up on the bottom shelf and pulled the door of a display shower open so she could run inside. At the same instant, David bent down to pull her away from the shower and tell her she didn't get to climb all over the displays.

The shower door was not attached to the hinges of the shower, though, so when she pulled it open, it actually fell toward her, and since David was bent down to pick her up, the door hit him instead of her. It hit right on the back of his head and SHATTERED. He was crouched over Zuzu as the door broke into a zillion pieces and showered them in glass--all down his back.

He had a small cut on his neck and his hand. Zuzu had a scratch next to her eye and a tiny cut on her foot. She was completely freaked out.

A bunch of employees ran over to see if they were okay (David said they were, even though Zuzu was crying) and started cleaning up. They didn't see a manager or anything. So he loaded Zuzu up in the cart and went and checked out. I think David was embarrassed by the scene--he said Zuzu shouldn't have been playing up there. But you can't tell me that other people don't open those shower doors! If it hadn't happened to her, I think it could easily have happened to some other kid (or adult). And if David hadn't been right there, bending over to pick her up, she could have been seriously injured.

I'm glad I didn't see it happen--I think I would have been totally freaked out. I was freaked out enough when David told me the story in the car. We got so lucky that no one needed stitches.

We spent the afternoon putting together some new patio furniture and cleaning and rearranging the patio. I really like the new set up--I think it's a much better use of space. And I have a few more ideas for things I want to do to spruce it up out there, but we're making progress!

(As we were putting together our lawn furniture, our neighbor came over to help us out by entertaining the girls and she noticed a piece of glass in David's hair--it was a shard actually stuck in his scalp!)

Later that evening, not to be outdone by her sister's brush with danger, Coco pulled up on a bench in Zuzu's bedroom and then somehow slipped and bashed her head on the corner. She's got an ugly bruise right in the middle of her forehead.

(In case I was feeling competent as a parent, both girls went go ahead and got visible and frightening injuries on Mother's Day. Well played, ladies.)

We tucked the little ones into bed, picked up the house, and relaxed for a while. We have a new little routine on Sundays where we let Zuzu skip her nap and then we put both girls to bed at 7:30pm. Zu is asleep by 8pm and we hang out and watch Game of Thrones and eat ice cream. (I highly recommend this routine as Super Fun.)

So that's how we wrapped up Mother's Day. I got some sweet texts and e-mails from friends and family telling me they were thinking of Eliza, and I wore my necklace that has each of the girl's names on it. I told myself (after crying Saturday night) that I was going to spend the day being grateful for what I have, and I DID/WAS/AM. But it still stung a little to see families with three little stair-step girls at the gardens. (One of them in matching monogrammed sundresses--adorable. I hated the adorableness SO MUCH.)

Five years ago on Mother's Day, I saw two pink lines. I was pregnant for the first time and had no reason to believe anything would go wrong. It was such a happy Mother's Day for me.

Five years later, I had a different kind of happy Mother's Day. Bittersweet (I think it always will be) but with an emphasis on the sweet, for sure (well, you know, except for the shattered glass and forehead bruises).