and he wore the backpack to Wal-Mart

Do you know that commercial with Morgan Freeman’s voice and he asks, “When was the last time you took her to the aquarium? On a Tuesday?” I felt that commercial today. The Whites gave us a horrible disease they call THE PINK EYE. We discovered it this morning when I was unzipping Jake’s jacket in his pre-school room, and his teacher said, “Oh, your eye looks kind of red.” And I said, “Noooooooo. It’s THE PINK EYE.”

She agreed it looked suspicious for such, we got the magic drops, and I’ve been inflicting them on him all day. And I didn’t take him to the aquarium. I’m not even sure where the closest aquarium would be. But I did use McDonalds pancakes as the bribe to get him to put his jacket and backpack back on and leave the happy classroom for home. We also went to Wal-Mart together (for cat food), and I got a miniature cake for our lunch.

But it wasn’t what we did that felt like the aquarium on a Tuesday. It was just breaking routine and being together every single minute. It was sort of a typical Monday for me – the spilling of things! the hiccups trying to get back in the swing of things at work. the stubbing of toes. And the SPILLING. But on days like that I do my little grateful talk (you know, I’m grateful for life, I’m grateful for fall…), and today all that grateful talk was for my children. And even for THE PINK EYE, because it gave me my Tuesday at the aquarium.