Getting emotional over grapes. (Yes, you read that right. Grapes.)

It is possible that I'm being slightly emotional. It's been known to happen. But this morning I woke up and was just sort of having a hard time. Jeff left at 3:45am to catch a plane for a business trip until Friday and the kids came storming in my room fairly early ready to start the day, so I did what any (admittedly) "normal" stay at home mom would do during the first "official" week of summer (and will probably do every week of summer that her husband is gone on trips). I gathered the kids and lined them up snuggly in my (now mostly empty) king sized bed and I turned on PBS kids cartoons so that I could sleep another hour. Pure bliss.

Sounds like a good start, right? Well, that start was pretty great but it doesn't count because I barely remember any of it. The part I do remember is Jack walking up to me when I was attempting to make a pot of coffee, which was a rookie mistake on his part; you don't whine to mommy until after she can smell coffee brewing (he knows that too, it's the part we stress the most in orientation). He was practically falling on the floor in frustration. I mean this kid was frustrated. Mad like I had never seen him mad before (and he is perfectly capable of getting mad). He kept saying, "Help me, Mommy! HELP!" I was looking down at him trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with him, but I could see nothing. I finally got him calmed down enought to get him to talk to me. He shrugs his little shoulders as a surrender and opens his hands.

In one hand he has a little vine of grapes with exactly seven grapes still attached to it. "Do you want Mommy to help you take those off so you can eat them?" Met with, "Nooooooo!" I finally pry the other hand open to find one single small lonely grape all but mashed in his chubby little palm. "This, Mommy! Help with this!" He was trying to put the grape that apparently fell off the vine back on. "Mommy, pplleeaassee!" Oh.my.goodness. The pathetic little look on his face showed how very badly he wanted this grape back on and I have never felt more useless. There was literally nothing I could do. I couldn't put the grape back on. I couldn't "fix" it. I am not super-mommy today.

Like I said before, probably (obviously) an over emotional morning. Seriously, am I really going to be mad at myself that I can't magically put a grape back on it's vine? This was the first of many times that I won't be able to fix it for him and the first of many that I will watch him slowly and simply "get over it." Maybe I should take note from him, and start doing exactly that.