Truth: Parenting is hard.

Truth: Parenting is tiring.

Truth: Parenting is trying.

Truth: Parenting is stressful.

But, among all of the everyday whining and fussing and tears and chaos there ARE a lot of smiles and giggles and hugs and cuddles. Actual happiness! Sometimes it’s glossed over or ignored or simply not recognized, but it is there.

I was reminded of this recently by my friend Julie over at I Like Beer and Babies (her blog name alone is great, no?). She does a post each week, “Puppy Dogs and Rainbows Friday,” in which she shares some of the good things that have happened in her week so that on not-so-good days she can remind herself that her life is good overall. How cool is that?! As she puts it:

As moms (and you awesome dads that read this), we seldom have the time to see the sparkles in our fog of dirty diapers, whining toddlers and constant need by others. Moral: be sure to stop and smell the unicorns every once in a while.

I was so inspired (plus I want to know what it’s like to smell the unicorns) that I asked Julie if I could steal this idea and do it here. She was excited for me to do it, and so I’m going to make this a weekly post. Fridays will forever more be known as Shiny, Happy, Sparkly, Feel-Good Fridays around here.

In this inaugural post, I’m sharing with you some photos of the things that made me smile this week. But I’d love to open this up to you as well for future posts. So, if you have a photo (or three or twenty) that you would like me to consider for next week’s SHSFGF post, please email it to me at raisingwildthingsblog@gmail.com. Or you can post it to my Facebook page, with a note it’s for the SHSFGF post. (Please see the notes at the end of this post about photo submissions.) 

Please also feel free to share quick stories if you don’t have or would rather not share a photo. I welcome anything that will help put a smile on our faces. 🙂

Now, without further adieu, here are my shiny, happy, sparkly, feel-good moments from this past week. There are actually quite a lot. Looking back, there were more than I realized going through each day. And these are only the moments I captured on camera! Enjoy. (I’ll pare these down in future posts, but since this is like the grand opening, I’m going balls out on this one.)

Looking forward to seeing what makes you all smile. Until next week . . .

Notes About Photo Submissions

• When emailing photos, please use SHSFGF Blog Post as your subject.
• Please only send photos that you have taken and can give permission for me to use.
• By emailing or messaging me your photos, you are giving me permission to use them on my blog, specifically in my Shiny, Happy, Sparkly, Feel-Good Friday blog posts. I will only include these pictures in the SHSFGF blog posts, but please note that I do share my blog posts on my Facebook page, so there is a possibility your photo could appear there as well.
• I will give credit for every photo in the photo caption. Please let me know in your email if you would like for me to use your name (and specify how you would like it written) or “Anonymous.” Please also let me know if you’d like to include a short caption with your photo. (Please, no longer than one sentence.)
• Which photos end up in the SHSFGF posts are solely at my discretion, although unless there is a compelling reason not to (see next bullet), I will try to include every photo that is submitted. Depending on the number of submissions, however, photos that I’m going to include may be held for later posts.
• Please keep the photos clean, people. I will not post anything I find to be offensive or in any way contrary to the point of these posts, namely, spreading happiness!