Sometimes, you need to pick up the baby, throw nap schedules to the wind, and go outside.

Last year, Bean and I were having a particularly terrible morning. Dave had been out of town for 4 days, she had been waking up throughout the night with bloody noses. I bought 3 different humidifiers in a 4 day stretch, desperate for a solution. She had just woken up for the day at 4:30, when I realized her mattress was completely soaked through.

We could either have another depressingly difficult day, or we could not. I chose not to. We went to the zoo.

And I was committed to Doing The Zoo Right. We did not pass a photo booth without stepping inside. We took in the Grizzly Bear feeding. I told Bean she could have whatever she wanted from the gift shop. Mama was feeling generous.

After the zoo, we went out to Ocean Beach — just me, Bean, a stroller, and a backpack. With shoes off, we lay down in the sand and made sand angels. She discovered tossing sand into the wind to see it whip up the sand dunes; she shrieked with delight. Our jeans and jackets were caked in sand. And we were delirious with joy. It had gone from being a terrible day to one of the best days of my life.

“Go outside” has become my own bit of advice to myself over these past couple years. My default is to hunker down and stay home.

If you’re having a miserable day, the kind of day when you realize you can’t do this anymore, totally definitely not cut out for this, and you need reinforcements because you cannot do this for another second (NOT ANOTHER SECOND). And then you look at the clock and it’s only 9:15am. There are no reinforcements.

Get outside. Grab the baby/toddler and go outside. Don’t worry about nap times or whether you’ve brushed your hair (you haven’t). Just leave and walk. Run to your local park and put your toes in the grass. Or take a walk through the streets. The fresh air (and, who am I kidding, the bright blue San Francisco sky) will reinvigorate you and make you better.