Another moment of clarity

If you ask Theo how he is feeling he points to his cheeks and says, "Happy!" (Unless he is not happy.)

I'm so sad that Natasha Richardson died!!

She was skiing on a bunny slope in Quebec on Tuesday, fell and hit her head, got up and walked away feeling fine, then a few hours later she felt sick, then a few hours later she was brain-dead. What the!

I only really remember seeing her in The Parent Trap but she was so cute in it and her husband, Liam Neeson, is in a bazillion things and I really like him. And they have two young adolescent kids. So sad.

Another article in the Huff Post (which I don't generally read; I don't even know how I came across the article about NR but somehow I did, while trying to find out who got eliminated on American Idol! Yes, I was looking!) talked about losing a parent as a young teen. The author, whose own father had died years earlier, concluded that she wanted to do something to honor Natasha's kids' loss, and that was why she made pancakes for her son on a busy weekday morning instead of refusing his request as she normally would.

Even before I read about all of this I was thinking a similar thought about Theo, as I am wont to do from time to time. The guilty-mom thoughts, you know. Wednesday I was so tired and frustrated much of the day. I had so much to do but no energy to do it. To top it off Theo kept asking me to "Wee? Stowy?" Particularly he was asking for "Line?" (Madeline) and "Feh?" (Good Night Fred). A few times, I did refuse. As much as I do enjoy asking "Please, children, do / tell me what is troubling you!" with the response "Boo hoo! We want to have our appendix out too!" both in a hideous French accent.

Poor kid was sad but got through it...with the suggestion of playing blocks--alone of course, or eating a cookie--alone of course. Hey, sometimes it's about survival.

Then several hours later, after I returned from Enrichment and grocery shopping and both kids were snug in bed, as I knelt in the dimly lit living room picking up scattered blocks for the thousandth time, I thought about Theo's earnest request for "Line?" and decided that I would be a little more patient the next day. Not perfect patient. Just a little more.