Day 3 and 4.

I’ve been getting some feedback from all of my beautiful tribe of friends and family. Some has been full of concern for my over-all well being, maybe my sanity and my health.  I just want to assure you all that I am functioning at a pretty decent clip. The weighing myself thing is a simple challenge because I came to see the whole thing as a substitute for perhaps a more meaningful metric.  I want to assure all that I am well, happy-ish and attending to the business of life—and only a little bit coo-coo.

Today’s blogpost illustrates humorously how early the blame/shame game shows up and how diversionary tactics are employed to keep the focus off of our own character defects from at least, well,  kindergarten.  

Night before last, I was getting the kids upstairs after making dinner from scratch, two different dinners in fact, which neither kid really ate.  There were gnashing teeth, whining, slumped bodies on the table, things said through noses and comedic emphases like ‘I didn’t WANT any CHEESE in my broccoli soup, Mama! I am so ANGRY!!’  It was super funny. I think if I hadn’t had some practice detaching from this, I would’ve gotten sucked into the fray. But as it was, we just headed upstairs. I returned to the kitchen after instructing the kids to prepare for their baths.  What happened next, I don’t really know but blood was drawn. I arrive at the top of the stairs to find my younger son peeling back his lip in horror to show me that it was bleeding inside and telling me that Henry had popped him in the mouth.  I sent them both to their rooms to collect their thoughts—and mine---frankly. Henry emerged from his room a little while later and I asked him what happened.  Somebody took something and shots were fired, etc. Elliot got the only visible wound but I guaran-damn-tee you that little monkey got his licks in.  I decided to stop the insanity right there and just call a truce.   

So Elliot was in his room with the babysitter and a boo boo bunny on his lip. Hank comes up to me in the hallway when things settled down a bit and puts his arms around me. I said, ‘you popped your brother a good one, honey. His lip is bleeding.’  Then there was a long pause and he said, ‘Mama, today at school, I had a bloody nose.’  I said, ‘really, honey. I’m sorry.’ What happened?   He said, 

‘somebody picked it.’