Mbird blog ran a short excerpt from a new book by Catherine Newman called Catastrophic Happiness: Finding Joy in Childhood's Messy Years. As the blog notes, "Newman documents the story of raising her two small children in some of their most difficult moments. But she writes about them with such generosity and grace, that she has reminded me what children are: Gifts. Smelly, sweet, funny, challenging, weird, beloved little gifts."

Here's how Newman described one particularly challenging night with her toddler-aged daughter: "I rock this person—this half-baby, half-child—and sing to her, a ballad about Spanish leather boots because those happen to be the only lyrics I can remember right now. Birdy is struggling still and crying hard, but I try to remember that sometimes, if I'm sad or despairing, Michael, my husband, might rub my back and speak soothing words to me, and even though he might not see any change on the outside—I might appear to be wholly and despairingly unaffected by his care—inside I am comforted. And just as I'm thinking this, Birdy's body softens in my arms and her screaming morphs into raggedly breaths with only a little bit of intermittent crying when she remembers her great Woe and Sadness.

After the song ends, she sits up and asks, 'Could I have a tissue, bease?' so polite that tears spring to my eyes. And when I hand it to her, she blots at her own eyes and blows her nose, smiles at me, and says, 'Sink you, Mama!'" Sometimes it's the little things that make it all worthwhile.