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The last 48 hours have been an illustration of everything that is right with my life. And after months of belly-aching about being tired, uninspired, overworked, I miss my job, I miss my friends, BLAH BLAH just the sound of my own voice makes my stomach curl; these past two days have made me realize I need to SHUT UP and ENJOY THIS TRIP.

As always, it’s simple stuff that catches my mood and shakes me up. As I pulled the cart out of the “not so fresh” food aisle at Wal-Mart, I spied Greg picking up the garlic with Sara giggling wildly on his shoulders. Every Sunday Greg does the grocery shopping with me and has since the day I moved to Florida to marry him. Maybe he knows I’m too lazy to go without help. Maybe he likes low prices. I don’t know. I only know that every Sunday, there we are, sharing a very large task. What a relief for me. Sara at Wal-Mart is a very 50/50 proposition, but Sunday, she was laughing with all her might on Daddy’s shoulders. It was so beautiful I wish I could have frozen that moment to remember on the Sundays she whines uncontrollably while throwing food at Kelly’s head.

We came home and I was exhausted. I took a nap with the girls, something I almost never do. I woke up to Sara cuddled under my blankets and a thunk thunk thunk sound. Ducky and I crawled over to the windows to see Greg making faces at the porch overhang as he hung all the Christmas lights. Just like that, before the icky cold turned bitter, he put out the lights. Were the girls ever excited! Not only has he put the lights out already, he’s also called the radio stations to complain that they started the Christmas music TOO LATE this year. That’s my dork and I’m keeping him.

We all rolled downstairs to start Sara’s school project: turn her into a transportation vehicle of her choice. For weeks, she’s told us she must be a white school bus for her class Transportation Parade. Like a pro who has never done anything with his life BUT build white school buses out of cardboard, Greg made her the cutest little bus. Not begrudgingly. Not as if he’d rather be watching football. With great enthusiasm and positivity, Daddy made that bus. He turned the scraps into a puppet stage for the girls while he worked.

Greg had a meeting Monday morning, so I took the camera, and off the three of us drove into the barely above freezing rain and fog. As a large group of parents anxiously waited with cameras to document an annual tradition in the Early Childhood program of our school, in walked Greg. Out of the dark rain he came with a smile as bright as the sun. Kelly and Sara screamed “DADDY!!!” above the chaos of 16, 3 year olds strapped into rockets and planes and cars and tractors (and my God, a rickshaw!). Yep, he moved that meeting, just to watch his tiny Princess walk the halls with her friends covered in cardboard.

With so many new faces peering out at Sara from the doorways, she wasn’t up for a Parade. So down the halls of the elementary we strode: Kelly in arms, camera around our necks, Sara clinging tightly to both our hands. As we turned into the middle school wing, I had to giggle as I looked over to Greg and said, “Well, I guess sometimes it takes the whole team.”

And that’s what it took, the whole team. Daddy to make the bus, Mommy to decorate the bus with Sara’s instruction and assistance, Kelly to babble/giggle as the soundtrack to our lives, and all of us holding Sara’s hand to give her the confidence she needed to walk in the Parade. Despite the weather and the coaxing it took to get Sara to take part in the walking (because God knows we couldn’t carry her in that thing), it was quite possibly the greatest Monday morning we’ve ever had.  We love you Daddy.  We love you, we wub you, and to quote Kelly’s only word, “DADDY!!!!”

I so wish I could post pictures of the kids because it was ridiculously fun.  Besides a rickshaw with a “passenger” (doll baby), the John Deere had a roof, one Shuttle had an upside down monkey to illustrate weightlessness, another Shuttle had metallic fringe to demonstrate burning jet fuel, and a beautifully constructed plane had wings that went up and down to get one young man through the doorways.  Deliciously fun!