Charles Dickens had it right

But when the immortal 19th-century English novelist and hero-of-the-working-class opened A Tale of Two Cities with ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,’ I’m sure he didn’t count on it becoming a cliché used at least once by every hack writer on the planet.

I’m also pretty sure he wasn’t talking about parenting and having kids, but when my daughter finally closed her eyes and went to sleep Monday night, his words resonated in my mind.

See, my daughter spends three days a week at her aunt’s house, and her aunt is one of those people that are so great with kids they should write a book and make a DVD about it. Going over there in the morning thrills her no end. It thrills her so much, in fact, that she got up one morning at 4:45 a.m. and woke her parents up because it was time to go over. After a little sweet talk (from mom) and a lot of grumbling (from dad), she saw the error of her ways and proceeded to give us 15 minutes of peace and quiet before we all got up and had a leisurely breakfast.

A very leisurely breakfast.

Suffice it to say my daughter loves spending days with her aunt and cousins, and any attempt to end said days — like when I show up to take her home — is treated like high treason. She yells and she screams and cries desperately for her cousin and her aunt.

This bad mood only multiplied when we drove home on a recent Monday afternoon, and as we negotiated the slush and snow, I made a cardinal error: I asked her to take her boots off.

Now, with the mood she was in, I knew she’d refuse, and she obliged me, running away from me and tracking wet goop all over the house.

I took her boots off her feet, and she responded by yelling at me and hiding under the table.

Moments later, she forgot herself for a second and said she had to go and use the potty. I offered my help, and she declined. Rather than let her soil the carpet, I picked her up and set her on the toilet, while she yelled as though I were performing surgery with a rusty spoon and no anesthetic.

She hollered at me to get out of the bathroom and now it was my turn to oblige her as I slinked into the kitchen to work on supper. Indeed, when her mother came through the door, I handed her over and started on supper.

Worst day ever.

Supper came and went, and as the little monster chowed down, a magical thing happened: her bad mood began to lift like the curtain at an elementary-school play: slowly, but deliberately.

After supper, her annoyance with me had seemingly dissipated and, after dinner, found ourselves playing trepidatiously together. One thing led to another, and all of a sudden, Gabrielle found herself aloft, held there by her father as she pretended to be a ‘superbaby,’ flying through the air, stealing glances at her own thrilled visage in the reflection of mirrors.

Her delighted squeals and calls of ‘again,’ filled the house, and it wasn’t for anything her mother was doing. It was for me. Me me me me me me me me me.

Sorry. I lost myself there for a second.

The joy I was feeling at that moment couldn’t have been duplicated by a million football championships, or by a million dollars or by a million of anything. My heart was so full of joy my lower jaw began to quiver in excitement. Better yet, my daughter couldn’t get enough of me. It was sunshine, lollipops and every other great thing you can imagine, all at once.

Best day ever.