One Hell of a Long Day

Today is our fifth day in Destin and it rained most of the day. I took the kids to the beach this morning for maybe an hour before the initial rain started. The water was choppy, so entering the water was a no go. They didn't mind because they had the sand. We would have tried the pool since a little rain with no lightening is not a show stopper, but it was so windy and there had been no sun, so the water would have been freezing. I had the luxury of spending the entire day in the condo with two cranky kids while Chris was getting soaked attempting to get a much looked forward to golf game in. The rest of the family hit the outlet mall, but I refused to even attempt shopping with two small kids. I do not consider that a pleasure at all. I figure I will attack the mall tomorrow. I figured that nothing good could come of this day. We decided to take the kids out for dinner. About 10 minutes before we left, Peyton said he had to potty and we never ignore him since potty-training is our main focus with him these days. Low and behold, he decided to make his first attempt at poo-pooing and he did it. We have been waiting for months for him to poop in the potty and he did it with no coersion tonight. We were so proud; you would have thought he had won a gold medal. Of course we had to let him get a big prize after dinner. While at dinner, the boys were pretty good, we thought. Peyton was a little cranky at first and like most two year olds, he had to play with everything on the table. When we were leaving, four ladies at the next table commented on what a pleasure it had been to watch us have dinner with small children who did not run around and annoy all the surrounding tables. If you are not a parent, you can not understand the joy that is felt with such a statement. My boys are 100% boy. They are rambuctious and loud, not intentionally disrespectful, but they can sometimes be handfull. Suddenly, for the first time, I thought, they really aren't that bad. Life is good. Maybe it ended up being not such a bad day afterall.