Little Reflections of Parenting

Periodically, a mother's words can come back in the funniest ways. One evening over dinner, my son piped up with a complaint about how I had used one of his paper airplanes to write a note. In desperation that morning, I had unfolded his hand-crafted jet, smoothed out the creases, and wrote a note of permission for my daughter to give her teacher. He had objected to my doing this at the time, and hours later, still was a little peeved.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Next time, I will go into my office for paper and use that instead."
"It's okay, Mommy. I still love you," he answered.

I'm glad he does. I am also glad that of all the things I tell my children, this was the one thing I clearly heard reflected before my children left for holidays with their father. And they will come back saying or doing all manner of things they have learned from time with their other family. Of course not everything they learn is so charming.

A few weeks ago, my son came home with a note from school. "Had a good morning," it began, "but kicked, hit, punched, and gave Ryan a wedgie at snack time." My ex-husband was appalled and sent a text asking me who Tiny had learned the wedgie from. I texted back an answer, "You."

Heh.

Recent Publication in Parachutist

I always swore I would be the mother who could work, create, raise kids, and keep a clean house. How humbling to learn that is an impossible dream. Something has had to give... largely, this blog... and the yardwork... and the laundry... and.... And I miss writing for pleasure. These days, I spend several hours a day combing other people's copy for a myriad of errors, and at the end of the day, I simply cannot look at another computer screen, even for creative purposes. I can boast however, a recent publication for Parachutist, a nationally distributed magazine that my son likes to steal from my skydiving husband. You can visit my article by clicking HERE. The print version that fell through the mail slot this weekend has the full spread of family pictures, which aren't visible online.

Happy Reading!