Jacob woke up yesterday with the sniffles. He’s got a little cold. It’s no big deal – just a runny nose and a little cough. No fever and no real change in mood. In fact, he’s as happy as always. It’s something that I’ve always found fascinating. I’m pretty sure that I even touched on it in a previous post. I don’t know about you, but whenever I get sick, I’m miserable. I feel like I have no energy and I just want to curl up in a ball and sleep or watch movies. Jacob is his normal self, just with a cold. It’s amazing. I mean, he does just want to watch his videos all day, but who could blame him?

I remember when I used to get sick growing up. The best part about it was staying home and watching movies while my mom took care of me. It’s no wonder that we used to try and fake sick when we didn’t want to go to school. Who wouldn’t? Or, rather, who didn’t? (I’m sure we all did at some point)

Today, he woke up and he wasn’t well-rested. We heard him through the night, but he never cried out for us – he’s a little trooper! All he wanted to do was watch his Elmo’s Potty Time video – he calls it “Em!” and he calls Grover “Gabm” (incidentally, Grover is one of his new favorite characters) – followed by his Baby Einstein Numbers Nursery video – he calls it “Num!” – and then finishing it off with his Baby Einstein World of Words video – he calls that one “Woodn!” – before starting all over again. Had we let him, he probably would have watched videos all day long, and who could blame him? But we decided that he should probably get out for a bit.

So I took him to a park.

No, I’m not a hypocrite, there were no other children present.

We ran around looking for pine cones. He loves them! He was really in good spirits. After playing for a little bit, I took him to buy some apple juice. We hadn’t really started him on juice yet, but figured now was as good a time as any. He was excited! He really enjoyed his “Appm joo” – after his first sip, he smiled really wide, and said: “Mo!” (And we didn’t even give it to him pure; it was 80% water, 20% fresh-squeezed juice)

“Cold? What cold?”

Anyway, the whole point of this post is simply that I’m blown away by how much I’m learning from my almost-two-year-old. He’s smiling through his cold. It made me think that we really have the ability to choose happiness in every moment. Or, at least to choose not to let each moment define us, but maybe define the moment instead. We can smile through circumstances that seem less than ideal.

Of course, he threw a fit when I picked him up to change his diaper and put him down for a nap, so, one step at a time. But, he is just a toddler. We have much more control over our emotions and reactions.

Well, we have the ability to have more control over our emotions. It takes a lot of practice. Trust me. I know. I fail at it more often than I succeed, but I’m trying harder all the time. One day, I’ll get there.

It would suck if Jacob stopped throwing tantrums before I do…

Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend!

Love,

Jacob’s Daddy