This morning Emily had a 10:30 start at school.

This meant that she got to sleep in.

At 10am I walked past her room and though, hmmm, it’s weird that I haven’t seen her. Usually in the mornings she’s in my closet searching for clothes and in my kitchen searching for breakfast and in my head searching for help with study questions. But this morning is was quiet.

It turns out, it was because her alarm went off, she woke up, went back to sleep, and missed the bus.

Now, the reason I’m telling you this story is because I was annoyed. Really annoyed. I had a really busy day today in the middle of a really busy week. I’m preparing to help run a conference in Orlando starting on Sunday but since my skill set for running conferences is at about negative 45% I’m feeling unprepared and nervous and busy and overwhelmed and taking Emily to school for 10:30 was really just not in my plans and I was annoyed that she had the day off yesterday and still couldn’t manage to get up (late) this morning for school.

Now, the reason I’m telling you this story is because I was annoyed, really annoyed, and my nature would normally have me telling her how annoyed I was, loudly, and being unable to not lecture her on the way to school about my busy week and my responsibilities and her responsibilities. And even though I knew she felt horrible and the stress she felt by being late was pretty much punishment enough, my instincts would have still worn a scowl on my face.

Instead, I counted to ten.

Instead, I counted backwards from 1,000 by sevens and thought of warm brownies.

I grabbed my coat and keys and purse.

I told her that I wasn’t pleased that she slept in and I hoped that she would not do this again.

And then I turned on Hamilton and we sang the rest of the way to school.

And wished her a wonderful day at school.

Knowing full well that she’ll never do this again.

And that I call this progress.