Well, that didn’t take long. It’s day two of this gratitude parade, and I was already trying to talk myself out of showing up. (I’m tired. I have more time tomorrow. There’s no way I can keep this up for a whole month…) But, honestly, if I wasn’t sitting down to reflect on the goodness in my little pocket of the universe, I’d be ransacking the kids’ Halloween candy stashes and feeling like garbage about that AND how quickly I gave up on my goals. So here we are.

Today, I’m grateful for do-overs.

I thought about working late this afternoon. There’s been a lot of that lately — squeezing in an extra task or two to “catch up,” which never actually leaves me feeling caught up but instead just a little more fragmented and short-fused and behind on family tasks.

So I headed home in time to welcome the kids home from the bus. I had visions of healthy snacks while we peacefully took turns sharing our daily “two positives and a challenge” ritual. And let me just tell you, woah! NOT how it happened. From the moment the kids burst through the door, there was nothing but yelling and stomping and big, angry emotions. My automatic reaction: why didn’t I just stay at work? There was a quick huddle with my husband to debrief on what in the actual <youknowwhat> went down on the walk home from the bus. And then there was an overly-confident march up the stairs to diffuse the situation. Let’s just say that it ended with me backing out of a certain child’s bedroom very slowly with my hopes for a carefree evening absolutely dashed.

I’m just gonna be honest. The ransacking of the Halloween candy did enter my mind as a defense. The only thing that kept me from cracking open a “happy hour” cocktail was my lack of energy to descend the stairs where they live. And my well-intentioned dream of a pre-dinner workout (postponed from my well-intentioned plan for an early morning workout that I slept through this morning…again) flitted out of my head for good for the night, replaced with a maybe tomorrow. Ugh. Was it defeat or half-time? I had no idea, but I wasn’t quite ready to take the “L”. (Why doesn’t the sport of parenting come with a buzzer and some indicator or which damn period you’re in?)

I gave us both a few minutes to reset, and then I gingerly crept up the stairs giving myself a pep-talk with all the enthusiasm I could muster. I plopped my butt on my kiddos floor and asked for a do-over, which (much to my surprise!) he granted! We navigated the minefield of his angst with two positives and a challenge and some very careful treading on my part, but by damned, I left his room with a semi-politely placed semi-healthy snack order and an agreement that he was going to claim a do-over for an extra-curricular activity he’d had a big fail with last week and was dreading returning to.

And guess what, when I dropped him off at his club tonight, he bravely walked up those stairs (surely giving himself a silent pep talk) with his teacher that he’d butted heads with last week. When I picked him up from his club tonight, he came down the stairs with his head up, eyes smiling past the mask on his face, and a spring in his step that let me know he was BACK.

So cheers to do-overs. May we practice them; may we teach them; may we celebrate them. May we remember that trying again is an art form. And may we resist ransacking that damn Halloween candy.