“Jenny will not go skiing with you tomorrow unless you promise to not talk to her in the baby voice. She asked me to call you and she needs you to promise. Can you do that for her?”
Tuesday afternoon found Mark over for another visit. The weather was nice. They threw the football and played on the swings at the park. They seemed to enjoy each other. Mark and Will came in the house to ask if it would be okay for the kids to go skiing with their dad on Wednesday. I knew I was staring at a potential disaster, but until the kids could tell me that they didn’t want to go, I wasn’t going to stand in the way. My only comment was that Mark would have to ski the gentler runs all day because of Jen’s ability. He said, “Well I haven’t been able to ski with my little girl all year, and I really want to see how she’s doing.” Of course that sounded like he’s been wanting to ski with her, but really the three of us know that he hasn’t skied with her because he prefers the more challenging stuff.
Jenny still remembers the one time we saw him up there this year. He asked if he could ski a run with us because he wanted to see how Jen was progressing. She got very excited. We got off the chair lift, waited for Mark, she made three turns and he yelled, “Good job, Honey. Don’t forget to lead with your toe. I’ll catch ya later.” And he found a cut off that led to a black diamond run. Jen asked me where he went. I was stuck telling her that he chose to go down a different run.
Just this week I read a post on Kelly Diels‘ blog about how you can’t teach people how to treat you. I never have had any luck with that. But when it comes to my kids, I have to do something. And since I can’t tie their dad up, and drag him behind my car down the nearest county road, I thought I’d try teaching him. One more time.
So I made the call, explained that Jen didn’t want to go skiing, but that if he could promise to talk to her like the grown up little girl that she is, she would reconsider. And he said, “Well, she’s my little girl and I love her.” Okay. I know that. I gave him some more time to think about it. He didn’t offer anything, so I said, “Do you think you can put aside the baby voice tomorrow?” He hesitated and said he would try. Continue reading →
This morning we woke to broken shortbread cookie bites and green sugar sprinkles strewn across the kitchen counter and along the floor. A confused Barbie was standing erect in Will’s leprechaun trap. More cookie bites were laying around Jen’s upturned trap. No luck. They still haven’t managed to catch a real leprechaun.
So it’s one o’clock in the morning and I am sitting in front of my laptop, in my cat hair covered robe, with an Ocean Breeze scented candle burning, eating the best fudgy brownie cookies I’ve ever tasted.
I miss the roof. There. I said it. We camp out on the roof because of the good and the bad. We are ever-hopeful that the good outweighs the bad. After awhile, we lose sight of that delicate balance.
It was the winter of 1996 and I was standing in the middle of the produce section of a grocery store wondering how anyone could fuss over a navel orange when my grandfather had just been found, face down in the drifted snow next to his mobile home. I thought for sure that the clocks would have stopped, that time would be frozen somehow, so that everyone could acknowledge the passing of someone who was so dear to me. How could people go on about their day, squeezing heads of iceberg lettuce, griping about the long lines, and fumbling through their purses for coupons? How could life continue to be so ordinary?
Some days are like that. You have to remind yourself to laugh. You have to stop taking yourself seriously. You have to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
These prints belong to Nina, the world’s most patient cat. She left them on the front step while she patiently waited for one of us to remember to let her in.
