Honesty Is Hardly Ever Heard

A good friend of mine did a very brave, bold thing last week.

She told me that she was disappointed in me, that I'd hurt her, that she was heartbroken.

Even writing it down now makes my own heart hurt again.

Still, I'm glad she did it, because it's better than the alternative. She could have just swallowed her unhappiness, then drifted away and acted polite until we weren't really friends anymore --  I suspect that's what most people do. I would have been left wondering what happened, making assumptions that we were just busy, that life's craziness got in the way, that it didn't really mean anything, that it simply slipped away.

But I would have missed her.

She is funny, talented, smart and thoughtful. She does amazing work in her chosen profession. She manages motherhood like a pro. And she has a quick, dry wit that she delivers with deadpan brilliance.

So as hard as it was to read her message, I am thankful that she is so brave, that she valued our friendship so much to be so honest, that she trusted me enough to tell me. And I am particularly grateful that she accepted my apology, understood my efforts to make things right and even appreciated my (somewhat lame) attempt at a joke to lighten the reply.

Thank you, my friend. Thank you for being my friend.
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Thankful Mama and a Sweet Baby Girl

According to my husband, that last post crossed the TMI line toward the end there. Sorry about that. The good news is that the plumber came the next morning and had everything fixed and running properly within an hour. I really should have trained to be a plumber instead of a teacher or a journalist -- better pay and very appreciative clients.

Anywho, I got a strong reminder yesterday that if my biggest problem is that I had to go overnight without running water while I waited (inside my toasty warm house with my loving husband and sweet children and plenty of bottled water) for the plumber to come in the morning (so that I could write him a check without worry and without having to crawl under the house in the puddles myself), then my life is really good. I have wonderful family and friends, my health and a great new year ahead -- and I am thankful. A little bad luck here and there shouldn't change that.

So instead of giving some kind of rant today about the crazy school board that just did away with assigning students to year-round schools without any review of the economic impact of that decision, I'm going to write a happy little Pippi post instead.

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This morning while I was getting dressed, Pippi was playing in her room -- she's just now getting old enough that she's figured out she can do that. I love listening to her talk to herself and her toys, alternating between random snippets of songs ("Row, row, row,... ream..." followed by "Bimble bell, bimble bell, bimble bell, way!") and general gibberish.

At some point, I realized she was calling for me, so I peeked into her room to find her holding Elmo by the hand (which makes him sing the "Sesame Street" theme in Spanish) with her pretty monogrammed burp cloths spread all over the floor. She had pulled a diaper and a new package of wipes from the changing table and had been wiping Elmo's bottom, but she couldn't fasten the diaper by herself.

"Emmo dia-puh?" she asked, handing me the diaper and placing Elmo's tushie squarely on one of the burp cloths. After I got him properly suited up, she took Elmo into her arms, cradled him with a kiss, then tossed him over the side of the crib. "Night night, Elmo," she called, before dumping every book in her room on top of him, one at a time.

As I struggled not to laugh in front of Pippi (she was being so earnest about taking care of her "baby"), I realized I couldn't remember Junius doing this when he was her age. Maybe I've just forgotten -- and he certainly "mothers" his baby bear -- but the baby-doll instinct (or at least the impulse to keep a diaper on anyone small, which I certainly understand) seems much stronger in my daughter than in my son. Don't get me wrong -- she'll play with cars and balls and blocks, too, but she really loves to put on her dress up shoes, hook a little purse over her arm, and push that diapered Elmo around the house in her stroller.

Crazy stuff, this parenting -- but it's a funny show to watch.

Timber! Or... Why I'm Apologizing Again

I owe my mom an apology.

Actually, I owe her many -- seems motherhood hands me something to apologize for nearly every day. It's amazing how my understanding and sympathies change as my children show me what I couldn't see in my own mom as I was growing up.

But this one is not parenting related. Today I want to apologize for thinking my mom was over-reacting when she and my dad had several trees taken down around their house last year. She called me or sent me text-messages with photos probably six times that day. At the time I thought, "Why is she being so dramatic? These trees should have been taken down years ago. She's lucky they haven't already crashed into the roof. And it's not like they don't have dozens more still towering in the yard."

And then yesterday I found myself huddled on my neighbor's front porch with my children at 8:30 a.m., my heart racing, tears in my eyes, and a sick feeling in my stomach. The angry sounds of an enormous crane, multiple chain saws and a wood chipper rang in my ears. By 10:30 a.m., five 90-foot pine trees had disappeared from my front yard -- and that was just the beginning.

My reaction caught me off guard. My husband and I had planned to take the trees down from the minute we moved here -- it was exactly what we wanted to do in order to let more light in the house, have a better view, and not live in fear that we'd wake up with a pine tree in our bed during the next hurricane.

But standing there watching, it suddenly seemed more like the execution of an unsuspecting giant than a land management decision. As I choked back tears like it was double-header night at the chick flick festival, I thought of my mom. I felt suddenly selfish, sad and guilty about the trees (a sentiment only exacerbated by the fact that my husband had walked through the yard the night before, touching each tree to say good-bye and teaching Junius to say thank you to each one). And I felt like an idiot for underestimating the power that such tall creatures could have on a mom who had lived under them for more than two decades or even just 12 months.

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Today I've settled down again. I'm enjoying all the new sunlight in my yard. I'm imagining new landscaping in the front and more space to play in the back. And I'm thankful for the opportunity to learn yet another lesson from my mom, who is a great teacher and who always loves me in spite of myself.

An Apology and a Question

I'm writing to apologize for the joke I included in my please-leave-me-a-comment-so-I'll-feel-read-and-loved post last week.

I posted the joke, which I found in the comments on another blog, because I thought it was hilarious and unexpected. My husband, who also thought it was funny, emailed it to a few friends. One of them wrote back to ask why he was forwarding racist jokes.

Huh?

Then I read it again. And suddenly I remembered the controversy earlier this year surrounding a New York Post cartoon about the president's stimulus bill that showed two police officers and a dead chimp. Some critics, including Al Sharpton, were highly offended because they saw the cartoonist comparing Barack Obama with a rabid chimpanzee because the president is African-American.

So for the record, my associations with monkeys are generally of the Curious George variety. I thought the joke was an ugly-baby joke and it made me laugh. If I had thought it was intended to be racist, I never in a million years would have posted it. I sincerely apologize for offending anyone who saw the joke as a racist statement.

And for what it's worth, after my husband shared his story with me, I realized that when I had visualized the joke as I was reading it for the first time (because I'm a visual learner and that's what I do), I saw myself (or someone who looked like me) in the "mom" role in the joke.

What did you see or hear in the joke? Am I offensive or overly sensitive? Comment and let me know (and not just because I love to get comments, although I do, but seriously I want to know what you think on this one)...