Rule Breaker

I broke the rules today. Many of them actually. A plate broke and profanity raced off my tongue. Mommy fail. I meant to say "shoot" I promise. Taylor kindly informed me that ladies don't talk potty talk, and suggested I sit in time out until I could think of something nice to say. Clever little thing...I pulled up to our mall at 9:58am, it opens at 10am. "WHAT are we doing Mommy?!" Taylor asked me. "Max and I won't touch anything, we will just sit in the stroller, yaaay, the MALL!" she squealed. She knows the drill. Mask on, stay in the stroller, don't touch ANYthing. "I want to show you something." I told them. I raced them in, and they both starred in awe at the holiday decorations. We rolled up to an over sized chair and there sat Santa Claus. "SANTA?!!!" she squealed. We waved at Santa from behind the rope, and I saw the sparkle come back in her eyes. I couldn't look at the workers starring at us, I just kept looking at Santa. I saw kindness and empathy in his eyes. He made our day with a simple wave. We rolled away and Taylor looked back and said, "Mommy, will Santa make me sick if I go see him?" Ouch. I explained that Santa was just waving today, maybe another time we would get closer. She seemed fine with that, and giggled to Max about seeing Santa. The piano was playing in the department store, and I let my little ones out to dance for a minute. (Max went straight to the shoe department and began throwing shoes across the room), but Taylor danced....and pranced.....and hopped around to jingle bells. It was 10:15am, and we were back in the car. I drove home with a lump in my throat. Everything hurts. I'm exhausted. 9 more treatments, 9 more treatments...