“I finally had the talk with my kids. I told them that animals in the wild eat their young so they better get their shit together.”—unknown, but I wish it was me.

Parenting is a journey. Some days feel great, like I really have it together. Other days, not so much. And most days are a mix.

School mornings, in particular, can be adventurous. I do not have those bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kids who are awake and ready to go at 6am (except on Saturday, of course). I, rather, have 2 kids who quite literally have to be dragged out of bed by me, often in a frustrated panic, 20 minutes before we have to be in the car to get to school on time. Our mornings often feel rushed, and more than I would like to admit, I find myself snapping and raising my voice to get my kids dressed, brushed in all the appropriate places, and out the door so they can eat their breakfast in the car on the way to school. Mom of the year? Nope.

We could have a whole conversation about how their way of just being kids and my adult agenda don’t really match up and that’s actually the way it’s supposed to be. I could write about how important it is to strategize ways to make the mornings flow better, but in some ways that would miss the point. That’s a topic for another blog, and if I ever do get school mornings figured out so they flow well on any consistent basis I will certainly write that one.

For today, however, my point is that there are so many times that our adult agendas and our kids’ developmental levels simply don’t match. These times quite often become frustrating and stressful for us, and we often find ourselves having what we can refer to as “not our best parenting moments.” It is important to remember and acknowledge, and even celebrate, however, the moments when we can catch ourselves headed toward one of the those moments and change it. That happened for me this morning.

One of my daughters has some tactile sensitivities. She doesn’t like tags or the seams of her socks, shirts have to be soft, pants have to fight exactly right (which is a moving target), and tights are too tight—despite my multiple attempts to explain to her that they are call tights for a reason we have a tough time getting past this one. Needless to say, it can be challenging to get dressed in the morning.

This morning she had an exciting day planned at school and the perfect outfit to go with it. She was so excited, and she woke up a bit early, eager to get into her perfect outfit. She had tried it all on last night—my effort to avoid morning struggles around getting dressed. Of course, this morning, the pants she that fit perfectly when she tried them on last night were just too tight. I felt the frustration and started down the road of “not my best parenting moment,” saying somewhat irritably, “but last night they fit fine.” She persisted, they were too tight. For whatever reason, perhaps because this was a special day for her and somewhere deep inside me I remembered this and didn’t want to ruin it, this morning I was able to hold on. I took a breath and remembered a game I had started with her earlier in the school year to get her to wear her uniform tights to school. I’d forgotten it because we hadn’t played it in a while.

I said, “Oh! I know what to do, let’s play the stretchy stretchy game!” She absolutely lit up. We both crouched down into a squat and moved back and forth on our toes stretching out her pants, smiling at each other and saying over and over “stretchy, stretchy, stretchy” and laughing together. Literally fifteen seconds later, she stood up and moved on happily with the morning routine. Problem solved.

My guess is that the pants were not too tight, but rather what she needed was just a little connection, a smile, and a little fun on her special day. Too often our mornings are all about the tasks of the morning and simply do not include enough connection, smiling or fun. I am a task master rather than a loving, connected, and fun mom. As I sit here writing I am just so aware of the power of this loving, fun connection, and just how important it is every day. Not just on the special days.

This 15-second interaction not only helped us move past a tough moment, but in retrospect, it did so much more. We went on to have the smoothest, happiest morning we’ve had in a long time.

Lesson learned.