This morning I was at Walmart with Anna. She was sitting in the shopping cart- in the main part surrounded by all of our groceries. She began to complain that her stomach hurt. She had awakened just before we left to take the kids to school and we were doing the shopping on the way home.  I told her maybe she was just hungry since she hadn’t eaten yet. A few minutes later she exclaimed, in a panic, that she thought she was going to throw up. We ran to the bathroom and made it to the door before she lost her bedtime snack of grapes all over the floor, her hair, her jacket, and…all the groceries in the cart. Let me tell you, that was not a fun clean-up job! After that experience I still say “motherhood is so awesome”  because even though the clean-up was NOT awesome, I got to see Anna grow in her suffering. She was such a trooper. She was so sweet and lovely. She tried so hard not to make a mess! And watching her make the best of the situation was so tender.  Best of all, when we resumed our shopping trip (she was feeling better and we still had about ten things to get), and I told her, “If you have to throw up again please make sure you turn your head and do it on the floor” she demonstrated by pretending to throw up over the side with this purely angelic look on her face followed by a conspiratorial grin.