A fleck.

It is almost 2 AM.  Steve is away for a couple of days on business.  I have a hard time going to bed without him.  The day has been long and trying.  I feel so drained from busy season and now with Steve gone again, I feel as though I have so little to give my children.  I feel like I am doing my best and yet, I feel like I'm failing.  But there was a moment, a fleck of perfection tonight that I must remember.

I took our kids out to the backyard tonight even though I felt kind of grumpy.  It was a perfectly cool almost autumn evening.  I sat on our picnic blanket and watched Mei Li and Stephen dig in the dirt happily.  Mi Na toddled around, struggling a little bit as she is not accustomed to wearing shoes nor walking on overgrown grass.  She fell into my lap, on purpose, to give me a hug and she laughed. I played T-ball with Mei Li and Stephen, and everything felt beautiful for a few minutes.

Tears showed up for Stephen soon after we started playing.  It was my fault.  I wasn't playing T-ball correctly. He was sad and I felt impatient.  Again, this was just not my day.

But I'd be ungrateful if I forgot to collect my fleck of gold from today.  Yeah, I'm sad it's not a golden nugget, but I'm piling this fleck onto a wealth of small successes and happy memories.  And tomorrow, perhaps I'll find two more flecks.