Buckaroo Junction

Can I be honest? I have been a bad mama today. A really bad mama. Don't make excuses for me and don't tell me everyone has days like today. I have been inexcusably bad, and I need to make amends. I was over-tired today, after staying up way too late editing photos. I know I am very short tempered when I don't get enough sleep. That alone should have been enough to send me to my bed by 10:30 last night. After being probably completely exasperating to my children, I exploded at baby Graham after he broke one of my photography light bulbs (which contained mercury). I was so frustrated because it was the millionth time today he had gotten into something, and this time, I had a mercury spill to clean up. I was exhausted, and I didn't know the first thing about cleaning up a mercury spill. I started to yell at Graham. Then, I looked down and saw fear in his eyes. Not that good, healthy sort of fear that is appropriate when a child gets into trouble, but that "I am scared of you" fear. I felt terrible. How do you apologize to a 20 month old?
About an hour later, after spending time playing with Isaac in order to attempt to make up for my horrible mood, I made Graham a bottle and sat with him in our big rocker. As I held him, I fell in love with him again. His soft skin, his big, clear eyes (so full of innocence), his little baby smell. Everything. I know I have been too preoccupied with other things. Things that don't matter. All that matters is my sweet boys. I know I have been completely off track to have forgotten the bliss that comes from snuggling my baby.
And then I realized something. God had used this terrible day, and my terrible attitude, to bring me back to ground zero with my babies. I am completely, overwhelmingly, all-consumingly in love with my little boys once again.