The day that every parent wants to have

In preparing to leave town at 7 tonight, I took the day off to play with Ada. She is not coming with me on my trip, she gets her own trip (Thanksgiving with her grandparents). Lately, Ada has veered between two poles - utterly charming, polite and adorable, and Godzilla meets the Thing on a bad day.

Luckily, today she is great. We woke up, she happily ate the agreed-upon breakfast, we colored, built a Lincoln Log house, read books, ran around in our underwear and generally entertained one another for several hours this morning. Then, without any fuss, we packed up a few things and ran to the post office to mail a package. After that, Ada offered that she'd like a bagel, so we walked to the slow cafe for bagels and books.

All this may not seem like much, but on her bad days, I can accomplish nothing without butting up against Ada's non-stop whining, crying and assorted complaints. No effort goes unpunished, no reasonable offer is accepted. On a day when she knows that Chris and I will be leaving without her, I would have understood if in she acted out to show her annoyance.

But today was good. Fantastic, actually. My funny, smart, verbal, creative child made me laugh and gave me plenty of reasons to enjoy her company. And when Juni came to drive Ada to her grandparents' house, she was happy and friendly and fantastic. I know every day can not be like this, but I am so thrilled that I get to live such days when they come along.