The Countdown Is ON!

Approximately one hour and five minutes remain until I can hug my Annapie.

This is my daily countdown.  I bet many of you have one too - only X number of minutes until I can leave, go to happy hour, get dinner, pick up my kid, call my friend, whatever it may be. There are so many things that we may be anticipating as the day drags on.

My countdown is for Annapie hugs. From the moment I leave her in the morning until I greet her at school at the end of the day, this is what I am looking forward to....her happy face upon realizing I'm there, and her running across the playground yelling "Mommy!!!" before enveloping me in a giant hug.

Today that's especially so, because our morning goodbye was tough.  She had gotten up early enough to watch her new favorite show, "Dragon Tales," before school - "Let's snuggle on the couch and watch 'Dragon Tales,' just you and me, Mom, that sound good?"

It did. So we did that.

But then she cried all the way to school because her seat belt was "too loose" (never heard this complaint before), instead of our usual morning ritual of singing along to songs from the iPod, such as "Hakuna Matata" or "The Talk Talk Song" (also known as "Sydney, I'll Come Running" by Brett Dennen - if you know and love this song, as we do, you'll totally get why she calls it the "talk talk" song).

Then, once at school, she was upset because we hadn't unzipped her jacket in the hallway where jackets are hung; we had waited to do that in the classroom.

It didn't take me long to discover, as she wouldn't voluntarily let go of me when it was time to go eat breakfast, that she didn't really care about the seat belt or the unzipping of her jacket.  She cared about the goodbye.

Apparently, it was destined to be one of "those" days.

I've spent the day at my desk not as productive as usual - things just don't feel right when the morning has gotten off to a rocky start.  Besides, I'm still exhausted from having been sick a couple of days ago.

But I know what will cure that - the monster hug that is waiting for me, now in approximately 57 minutes.

I love that Anna is still young enough to think hugs cure everything.  Every time I'm tired or out of sorts or sick, she says, "I'll give you a hug when we get home, and you'll feel better."  Then, immediately post-hug, she'll ask, "There, are you better now?"

Nose-squishing contest!

How could I not be?

51 minutes.  Bring it on!