Thursday, Apr. 05, 2012 - 1:38 p.m.

Love it when my mom gives me parenting advice.

They were playing some game on the couch and Q finally bonked herself good. This was right when our lunch was finally ready; I was hungry, and I know Q had to have been hungry, too. Anyway, she cries for a while, not accepting hugs (as is her habit when she's hurt herself), refuses offers of food, and then leads me to the bedroom for a snuggle-- all while crying. So I go, complaining a little that it was time for lunch and telling mom (rather irritably, because hey, I was hungry) that she should go ahead.

Mom says, No, come on, sit down out here! I'm like, "Well, but she wants to go back to her room." And so mom says, "Yes, but you don't have to DO it. You're BIGGER than her."

!

To which I said, "Oh, is that what we want to teach her? I thought I was trying to COMFORT her. I think she knows better than I do how she would like to be comforted."

Anyway, yeah. Just a little incident, but shows you our different parenting styles. Yes, I am willing to use my size to my advantage when it comes to stuff like keeping her from running into traffic, or when we really have to hurry and we don't have time to be as leisurely as usual. But I don't use it simply for my own convenience. That's just rude. I also comply with a lot of her requests if I can, even when they are not convenient for me. After all, I ask her to comply with my requests all the time. Just seems fair. Mutual respect. Something that was always missing from my relationship with my mother. And while I'm complaining about mothers, mil sent two boxes of Easter swag for Q. One box was mostly the personalized basket she had had made (not that we needed or wanted it). The other box contained another giant pile of dresses that I mostly don't like, and more Easter presents (some candy which I will assume is mostly for J and I, because you know, we can't get candy here in Tucson. (Ok, that was uncalled for. Still and all.)). The basket itself had come filled with two stuffed animals-- basically there's no way in hell I can get all this crap into the basket she sent, much less anything I might have purchased/made for it myself. (Am I allowed to do that? Since I seem to be so regularly preempted.) WTF? When I was a kid I got one Easter basket. What the hell are we supposed to do with all this crap? Anyway, that was your crabby ungrateful linguafranca moment for the day. You're welcome.

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