Yesterday my son chimed in with his two cents worth regarding my recent posts about his mother:
“You’re lucky she finds that sort of thing funny,” he essentially told me.
And while that is, of course, true as far as it goes, the more important truth is that he is lucky that she finds that sort of thing funny.
Last night L’s mother made a valiant effort in clearing the aftermath of her efforts in the kitchen yesterday, but she eventually (and understandably) reached the point where she said, “That’s all I’m doing tonight. I’m sorry for leaving such a mess for you, but I’m done.”
I thought about this for a moment. “You know . . .” I said slowly. “If you ask respectful of my time for me to finish it up for you, and thank me nicely afterwards, I’ll happily do the rest. If you don’t do that, I’ll still do the rest; I’ll just do it unhappily.”
The fact that I have an ancestor named Daniel Boone (not the Daniel Boone, but a Daniel Boone), says a lot about my ancestry, I think.
Despite my numerous failures in achieving anything more than an ephemeral sense of tranquility, I have learned from my failures, frequently with the help of those close to me.
Along those same lines, I also do my best to learn from the failures of those around me, and let me say here and now to those close to me that I am perfectly okay with you scaling back your “help” in challenging me in my endeavors.
I need to use the bathroom, but I know L’s Mother is running a bath in the closest bathroom. No problem, I’ll just use the back bathroom.
*Walks past the closest bathroom and sees the door is open* Oh, she’s not in the bath yet! I’ll just nip in and use this one then . . .
*Steps into the bathroom and sees the toilet seat is on fire*(1)
I . . . think I’ll just use the back bathroom instead.
******
(1) Okay, not literally, but there IS a huge candle burning on top of the toilet seat in anticipation of the bath to come.
On a much needed lighter note, today my son, L., and I were playing with our dog, Isa, and my son got some of her fur in his mouth, prompting us both to laugh.
“Oh, Isa,” I said to the dog because she was looking confused. “You’re always good for amusement even when sometimes you don’t mean to be.”
“Like my mom!” L. chimed in.
The other day I told Lala that apparently I wanted to empathize with her more, and therefore pulled something in my back out of sympathy with her own recent pulled back.
Her response: “That was painful and dumb.”
She then went on to assure me that she was kidding, and she hoped that I felt better faster than she had, but with a lead up like that, I had NO problem telling her that, “Put that way, I hope I do too!”
This morning out of the corner of my eye I saw L’s Mother do a cute little stage-worthy side kick in the kitchen. I figured she was probably just in a good mood, but I decided I wanted the full story.
“What was that for?” I asked her.
She shot me a curious look. “I nearly lost my balance.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well it was adorable in my peripheral vision.”
Me: I’m going to lie down for a bit and try and replenish some energy.
My son: (not really listening) You’re going to punish what?
Me: “Replenish some energy.” *shakes head* I’m going to punish some synergy!
My son: Oh, okay!
Fifteen or so minutes later my son stomps past my door noisily protesting (again) that his mother isn’t available at the exact moment he wanted her for something.
Me: (groggily) Well . . . there’s the synergy . . .
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post:
In fairness to L’s Mother, the reason she was following me down the hallway was so she and L. could talk somewhere other than my office. (She didn’t tell me this, but I recognized what was going on.)
