"The King's stinking son fired me, and thank you so much for bringing up such a painful subject. While you're at it, why don't you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it? We're closed."

A dear friend of mine posted on her facebook that her sweet little daughter went to church and wrote her a precious, touching letter as part of her Primary lesson on families.  " Dear Mom, I love you for turning on the tv for me."  Ouch. 

I went to bed yesterday after church with a sinus headache.  In pain, I might add, thus the use of the word, "-ache".  I slept for about an hour, came downstairs still groggy and bleary-eyed, and my dearest, nearly twelve year-old daughter said, "you ALWAYS have a headache.  You ALWAYS sleep during the day." (EXCUSE ME?) "You NEVER play with me." Hmmm...  I reflected a minute and tried to clear my head - I've heard this story before from my children during allergy season when I really do spend a lot of time not feeling well - and wondered where this was coming from.  I had spent all day Saturday with her, had taken her shopping, had taken her to Sonic, had bought her the pattern and fabric for the new messenger bag she wanted to make for school.  (This partly out of guilt over Aunt Melisa being the first to sew with her and not me, too.)  Saturday had been a day of Hannah, just like when she was a little girl, all hers - Julia hadn't even wanted to come with us, so she had been the center of my attention for hours.

After asking her what she really wanted, and finding out she wanted me to sew with her RIGHT THEN, and telling her, no, I was not going to sew with her right then, that I had other things I needed to do and she could hang out in the kitchen with me and make cookies if she wanted while I worked on my other stuff, I decided that in our jobs, all mothers are just a paper cut waiting for lemon juice to be poured right on.

When I was a teen, I shamelessly accused my mother of not paying enough attention to me as a child, practically accusing her of not loving me.  She patiently explained I had required "holding" (as in "hold-me") for years, at least until I was 4 or 5 and that was part of why I felt angry and abandoned when Aunt Mel came along.  I don't even remember feeling angry and abandoned (I do remember running away after they brought her home - that story another time) I just remember thinking mom didn't love me.  She gave everything.  But didn't love me enough?  Aye yi yi.  So Hannah, and Julia - my "hold me" child, and likely Grayson and Emory, and maybe every child out there, believes their mother never feels well enough or doesn't play enough or always has a headache or doesn't have enough time or is just really good at turning on the tv.  Ouch.