The Pilot's Wife

I don't know.  Sometimes things seem to be going really well- and then they're not.  I've come to a realization that in my efforts to not-be-my-mother, to love my girls, to accomodate their personalities and promote their confidence and self-esteem- I may have been letting them walk all over me.  I started telling the girls to go to bed around 9 o'clock last night, giving them 30 minutes of warning.  They were still up at 11pm.

At which point I had a meltdown. 

And so I woke the girls up this morning and allowed them not even a second to acclimate, saying, "You want to stay up until 11pm, you better jump out of bed at 7am and have your feet on the floor."  And thus started our day.  Both girls took showers and I got in with Avery after she got shampoo in her eye, so now I am all clean and fresh and ready to start the day.

We also let our painted lady butterflies go this morning.  It was a bittersweet goodbye to these pretty little critters who the girls rush to see the moment they are in the door in the afternoon.  This is, in my estimation, the perfect pet because you get them as caterpillars, watch them eat and grow and then go into their chrysalids.  You transfer them to a little house made out of mesh and they emerge in there as butterflies.  The girls were always excited to stick their arm in and wait patiently for a butterfly to land on them and 'taste' them with their feet.  And then you let them go- no more mess or fuss.  Ha.

We're going to the dentist today.  Vi is getting two teeth pulled and then some sort of retainer to push her two front teeth forward.  The dentist says this is pretty much all she needs and her teeth will be about perfect- no cavities, no bite problems, relatively straight. 

Early release today, so I've got to get to the housework while I have a chance.  I'm going to put on a movie while I do the ironing, otherwise it's just tedious.  Who knows, maybe I'll have time to sneak  in a ride.  Okay.

Oh, one more thing.  I just finished rereading "The Pilot's Wife" for book club.  I have to say, the whole thing was just really depressing to me.  I think people have this need to pick a book so they can say "We're reading Great Literature here" and everyone goes for the things that move them emotionally.  We all seem to relate to grief and sadness in a very similar way whereas with humor it is much more difficult to find common ground.  I would so much rather read a book that was touching and humorous than waste a day of my life reading something sad and miserable. *note to self: don't be so sad and miserable.  *note to self: don't pick a depressing book for book club when it is my turn again.  Seriously, and if I have to read another Russian novel where someone suicides under a train, I will kill myself, or at least not read the book and pretend I did.

Comments

[melissa cole]

nice post. I agree with what you said. beams.