So...Mental Health Day

We started the day with hours of television.
That's right - hourS.
I'm too embarrassed to tell you how many...

The girls had AppleJax for breakfast.
And lunch.

Some may call it breaking two cardinal rules of mothering:
1) Don't let your kids watch too much television.
2) Don't let your kids eat sugar cereal.

I call it a mental health day.

Those hours were accompanied by lots and lots of cuddling, kisses, and "i love you"s.
The kids were happy.

And then after our delicious and nutritious lunch, we finally got dressed and headed out to the library.  By then the sun was out and the rainy morning turned into a glorious afternoon. 

We enjoyed the quiet "off" hours at the library.  We stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up some ingredients for dinner.  Then we picked up a couple Smarties suckers at our favorite drive-thru convenient store.

I was trying my best to avoid the self-destructive negative comments to myself about my failures of the day.  I really didn't try very hard to be a mother today.  I kept telling myself it was "OK," and "we need days like this every once and awhile," - which totally may be true - but those thoughts usually don't make me feel any less guilty about my laziness.

But then I overheard Second Daughter talking to her little friend on the sidelines of a soccer game tonight.

"My mom is super nice," she said, without even being coerced, prompted, or bribed.

I wish I had a recording of it.
On one of my not-so-proud mommy days, I was reassured that I'm not completely messing up.

At least my child thinks I'm super nice.  :)