What a load of crap!!

Ok, uh, you know how systems tend to power down after surgery (even when you don't take painkillers) ? Well, uh, since bounding, bouncy exercise isn't an option right now, I resorted to FIBER as my weapon of choice in this battle.

Lots of fiber.

I mean, really, a literal SHITLOAD of fiber.

And then, well, (blush) with the old powerful antibiotic side effect I think I have, uh, hmmmm... pretty much got that problem SOLVED.

OK. Other news.

Speaking of crap, this cheap keyboard I bought to get me by until tea-fried laptop gets repaired is a PIECE OF IT.

I'm a crappy mother when I get tired and overwhelmed (I actually knew that way before all this cancer stuff, but you might not have known). My particular crappiness really only hurts one child though. Paul is full of crap - so he just shoots it right back at me. Or maybe because he's so socially intuitive, he just knows how to keep things moving in his favor.

My analytical 8-year old daughter is not so lucky.

Yesterday, at dinner? I'm sitting next to her, openly staring at her while she eats.

I've decided dinner is a sport and I'm giving her the play-by-play critique.


"Don't eat so fast. God you'd think you were starving. We're not in a barn you know."

And the worst? The slow dark, disapproving mommy voice:

S-L-O-W D-O-W-N

Followed by a stony lipped glare.

She tries to slow down.

"Why do you bend your head like that into your plate? What is wrong with you? Don't you know how normal people eat?"

She's literally taking her fork and using it as paddle to slide food from her plate into her mouth. I mean, the girl isn't even chewing her meat! If it weren't for the hand and the fork blurring the picture, she'd be able to pass for my parent's dachsund. No, wait, their dacshund is much more delicate. She's more like my sister's lab.

"Here let me show you how to eat. Sit up straight, like this. Lean your head over your plate, but not down. Now bring your fork to your mouth, not your mouth to your fork."

She sighs and rolls her eyes at me.

So now she's piercing pieces of meat with her fork, bringing the meat to her mouth, but being careful to leave the fork outside of her mouth. She grabs the meat with her teeth and kind of does a wierd chin jerk to toss it back into her mouth.

"Why are you eating like that? What do your friends say about the way you eat? Do they think that's normal?! Why can't you put the fork IN your mouth??!!!"

Even crazy maman knows she's gone over at this point. I look at Francois and see he's not too impressed with my daughter badgering either. And I swear, I have to leave the table because I simply CAN'T STAND HOW SHE EATS!!

Whew.

So you might be thinking I'm all guilt ridden and stuff -- but honestly, I'm really very good at forgiving myself. In fact, I think I forgive myself more quickly than my friends and family (pre-cancer, of course) and uh, feeling forgiven before the person who wants to forgive you is ready, well, that can actually kind of rub them the wrong way sometimes.

And I've had to live with these crappy mother moments for, oh, what now -- 8 years?

I just apologize. Somehow, I think that honesty helps us -- and helps Delphine. She needs emotional behavior spelled out. When it comes to emotional perception, Delphine is like a gifted musician with perfect pitch who can't understand people who enjoy Muzak. The social games we play to cover or distort our authentic reactions and emotions don't make sense to her.

I'm like a living lab of human behavior for her, complete with a translation device.

So, I'm brushing her hair and I'm telling her how wrong I am to pick at her. I tell her I am sorry I explain my obsessive feelings. I promise her I'll try not to do it anymore.

We're all happy and close.

So we go back to the living room to watch the movie we were all viewing together. She asks for some apples and caramel. I bring her some.

She starts eating the apples...



but she won't use her front teeth. She puts the apple slice back under her molars to bite them off.



"Are your front teeth sensitive?" I ask her, "Do they tingle when you eat something cold?"



:-P @#$%& (Crap!!)



Today's STATS:

Left Side: GONE!!!
Right Side: 55 ml

(Ooooooohhhh...One more fun detail. When she pulled the tube out, it made that fleshy sucking sound they always use in CSI during the autopsies. Pretty cool. Didn't hurt a bit. If you really want to know what it looked like, I'll post something.)