{"id":2843,"date":"2013-09-05T19:09:07","date_gmt":"2013-09-06T03:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/?p=2843"},"modified":"2013-09-09T16:02:59","modified_gmt":"2013-09-10T00:02:59","slug":"such-a-special-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/?p=2843","title":{"rendered":"such a special night"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I wasn&#8217;t sure&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I wasn&#8217;t sure part way into this night that all of this was a good idea&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>In fact, not until everyone else left did I know that it was, indeed, a very good idea.<\/p>\n<p>So, let me back up&#8230;<br \/>\nTonight I picked Halle up 5pm &#8211; then Great Northern pizza and salad (which you have been asking for many times in the past 3 weeks) &#8211; and then we picked up you.  You were hanging with Julie, Dan and Madeline at Julie&#8217;s this afternoon, because I had an intense deadline and you weren&#8217;t feeling the best.<\/p>\n<p>I took you and Halle and the pizza to Highland park &#8211; by the most AMAZING garden of flowers!!!  You were sort of into the pizza, you were sort of playing with Halle, you were sort of aware of me, and I was ze-zausted from my intense, emotional workday.  I&#8217;m thinking, &#8220;Well, I&#8217;m not sure this is a good use of energy.&#8221;  That said, you two did climb trees, have jumping contexts, and create many skits that involved both of you rolling down a hill.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4518.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4518-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"IMG_4518\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-2853\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4518-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4518-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4528.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4528-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"IMG_4528\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-2854\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4528-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4528-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4541.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4541-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"IMG_4541\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-2855\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4541-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4541-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Then we headed to the Hyatt downtown (7 minutes away) for the<\/p>\n<blockquote><p> &#8220;Super Cool, Back-to-School Swim Party&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> that I had<\/p>\n<p> planned!!  Given the choice of many 3rd graders or just Halle, you chose just Halle.  All good.  <\/p>\n<p>You weren&#8217;t having the easiest time being generous with Halle to &#8220;push the button&#8221; in the elevator, open the door with the key card (though you were better with that), etc.  We went down to the pool, and you were still out of sorts &#8211; sometimes happy with Halle, sometimes mad at the world, and I thought &#8211; What have I done?!?!<\/p>\n<p>I want to raise a grateful, humble, generous child &#8211; and now I bring her to a nice hotel, and she isn&#8217;t grateful?  I am not helping her!!!  Beating up on myself for being a bad mom by giving too much, we ended the night by going up to the room.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s where the story gets better.  After creating skits with Halle and me (I think 4 of them &#8211; all requiring someone to hide in the closet), you and Halle read your Big Book of Why. We walked Halle and Daddy Jim to the car, and you and I came back up to the room.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Everything changed. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We painted nails.<br \/>\nWe told stories.<br \/>\nWe were totally silly.<br \/>\nWe sang Kelly Clarkson.<br \/>\nWe read Harry Potter.<br \/>\nThen we read Horris, Morris but mostly Deloris &#8211; and you did all of the dun -dun-dun-DUNS at the appropriate points in the story, and we giggled some morel<br \/>\nWe snuggled in bed &#8211; as you reminded me that you are going to &#8220;try&#8221; to go to sleep but you were not sure how successful you&#8217;d be.  I held you and reminded you that I didn&#8217;t just meet you.  You snicked and fell sound asleep within minutes &#8211; maybe even seconds.<\/p>\n<p>Precious time.<br \/>\nTruly precious time.<br \/>\nYou are you now snoring away in the king bed that awaits me.<\/p>\n<p>I so love being your Mama&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4553.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4553-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"IMG_4553\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-2852\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4553-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/IMG_4553-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I wasn&#8217;t sure&#8230; I wasn&#8217;t sure part way into this night that all of this was a good idea&#8230; In fact, not until everyone else left did I know that it was, indeed, a very good idea. So, let me back up&#8230; Tonight I picked Halle up 5pm &#8211; then Great Northern pizza and salad [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2843"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2865,"href":"https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2843\/revisions\/2865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littleraz.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}