It was a gloriously sunny 70-degree day, so I played my fun mom card and took my daughter to the park after school.

And guess what? It sort of sucked.

She climbed up a rope ladder and shifted into full-on panic mode when she couldn’t get back down. There were bugs on the slide and, God help us all, that was a thing. Then she got all weepy when her friend had to leave.

You guys, we were there all of 20 minutes. Twenty minutes. The weather was perfection and my extroverted kid had other children to play with. Did I mention I was actively playing the fun mom card? I did? Well, now you know I was really trying to be fun and my kid ruined the fun by not having fun at all. I was going for fun mom, but she wasn’t fun kid. She was just human.

So we went home and it wasn’t a thing. It was frustrating, but not a thing. She had used up her Monday reserves being a functional preschooler and even though the park is a usual favorite, she just didn’t have the reserves for it. She didn’t need fun. She needed a snack and some downtime.

I’m going to suggest that we all know what it’s like to to be the 4-year-old stuck on the rope ladder after a Monday of preschool. You’re up there and you know good and well that you climbed up there yourself, but your legs are just a smidge too short to back down comfortably and since you can’t see what’s beneath you, you don’t know that you’re practically there. No amount of sunshine can fix the fact that you could really go for a Pop-Tart, an episode of PJ Masks, your feet propped on a pillow, and no people talking to you.

You guys, just because something is good, doesn’t mean it’s good for you right now. My word, it might be really doggone good. It might be 70 degrees of sunshine at the park kind of good, but it might not be what you need at the moment. And that’s okay.

Follow Happy Like This by Mandy McCarty Harris for more stories of living happily in the awkward middle of life, love, and parenting.