Oh what a day!

Yesterday!! What the day. Poor Man came home to quite the series of stories.

First of all, Princess had her first day of school yesterday!! She already had a backpack so we went and got her a lunchbox and thermos and stickers to decorate them. She did so well in the morning. She had laid out her clothes the night before, made her own lunch the night before, and practically danced into her classroom. She danced on the way home. We inspected her backpack and found a simple worksheet (draw A's and a's). I asked if her teacher wanted it back the next day. She didn't know. I said, well, do it anyway, take it back, and that way you'll be prepared. Next thing I know, she's coming out to the living room crying that she can't make a's. Why not? I asked.

They aren't perfect!!

That plaintive whine pierced my sorry little heart. We had quite the talk about "perfect" vs. "wonderful" and which one really was ok. And of course how it's ok to work to make something absolutely wonderful and amazing, but for right now just practice.

It took her about an hour of whining and crying about her inadequacies to finally sit down and write out 4 a's, which I praised, sighed in relief, and told her to put it in her new folder in her backpack.

Of course she didn't like it when I pointed out that she'd been whining for so long, it takes less than a minute to write 4 a's, why is she torturing herself? And I'm finally starting to see more of what my own attitude toward myself is doing to my daughter who is more than a little like her old lady.

A friend I talked to about this said "Hard to see our imperfections in our kids, isn't it?"

My reply: It's brutal.

Anyway, she played with a friend after that and all was well.

On to Tag's cast. Right after we dropped off Princess, we wandered on over to get his cast off. I mentioned to the dr and nurse that it had itched that week so I let him use a chopstick to get some relief. They both looked at each other and said:

"uh-oh."

Me: No, no, it's didn't break off or anything. Nothing got lost in there.

Nurse: Oh, good. What did we find just the other day? An acrylic fingernail? [shudders]

Me: Oh, gosh, that was quite the itch.

[break for actually taking Tag's cast off]

Nurse: Holy cow, a penny!!
Tag: Yep! I was keeping it safe.

A friend came to visit me, the kids brought their friends over to play, I cleaned the house while the kids were distracted, we had dinner, and then I got an email to let me know that while my dad had experienced another stroke, this one was much more mild and wasn't likely to affect him as much as that last one. I had phoned my parents' house so Tag could talk to his Oma on the phone and got Uncle Romeo instead, who let me know that my parents were on their way to the hospital due to Dad having numbness over half of his body. I felt some fear, dread, worry. I found myself wondering if he had written out his mission or theater stories. We used to love it when the Missionaries came over for dinner because out the stories would come and we'd laugh so hard and just loved sharing something with Dad that he loved so well. And none of us can tell them as well as he can.

Pebbles cried all day long in the misery of her illness despite my best efforts to keep her comfortable. We put the kids in bed early. That was nice.

Today: Errands. Maybe a nap. I went to be too late last night.