Good Grief

The loss of all those innocent children in Connecticut yesterday has been haunting my thoughts since I heard the news. 

I'm not rallying for harsher gun laws or advocating for those with mental illnesses - there's more than enough of that out there at the moment. I'm thinking of those poor families who sent their children off to school and couldn't have imagined never seeing them again and I'm just holding my little family close. Last night, we spread a blanket and snuggled together to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas, thinking that Teagan would last 5 minutes like she does with anything else that isn't Dora. She proved us wrong and didn't budge from the blanket for the entire thing PLUS the other special on the DVD, It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown. A personal best of sitting in one place for 45 minutes. At one point during the movie, she looked me right in the eye (I still get emotional when she makes direct eye contact with me), gave me a little kiss and put her little arm as far as she could around me. Words can't express how wonderful it felt, so I insisted Brandon take a picture so I could remember how sweet it was.

 

All day, she ran up to me and gave me great big hugs and let me hold her for as long as I wanted. Somehow she must have known that I needed to give and receive a little extra love yesterday. And the cherry on top of a super sweet day was Teagan dancing around like the Charlie Brown characters. She asked us to rewind it again and again and she did the moves every time. The girl's got rhythm, there's no doubt about that. I'm so glad she's mine and that I have her to snuggle with on days like this. I'm sorry that while I was watching cartoon characters saying "good grief" that there is nothing good about those parents out there grieving for their children. I will hug mine a little tighter and pray that I will be a better parent for having heard about their loss and rededicate myself to being a more kind and loving mother. Good grief indeed.