The Boy is in Seattle for the first time in nine months. Today the Boy made my famous cranberry muffins. I never knew how much he loved them until he was gone and then told me about it.
I helped melt the butter and then grease the muffin tins, and that was it. He made the muffins by himself.
He also made dinner last night. He wants to learn to cook, which is interesting because Claire-Adele is a really good cook. Really good. I remember a few years ago we took the Boy to a soccer game and Claire-Adele called and asked when we were coming home. She was kind of pissed.
"I made dinner. Chinese dumplings and chop suey. I found a recipe online, went to QFC and bought the ingredients. I made the noodles myself," she said. It was delicious. She knows how to read a recipe and can predict what it will taste like. She also makes a mean chicken parmesan and a wicked pie crust.
The Boy might have been intimidated by her, or intimidated by his perfectionist father. In either case, he is getting over it.
Today I woke up feeling grateful for the other moms at the Boy's school. At the parents workshop this week, I got to hang out with the parents in the Boy's group. Some are ahead of me, and others are behind. Some are nearly at the same spot. In all cases, these are well meaning, well educated and caring parents who didn't know how to take care of their child. When I see them, they make me feel less alone and feel less bad about myself and my parenting skills. If I just had Claire-Adele, I might think I jacked it out of the park, hitting a home run as a parent. Instead I think she is who she is, the Boy is who he is, and I did the best I could with both. After the Boy ended up in Wildie, I thought about how helpless I was. I realized I had very little to do with Claire-Adele's success. I gave her fertile ground but she planted the seeds and tended her garden. The Boy needed a different environment than what we could give him. I think of him as an orchid and Claire-Adele as my daisy. Claire-Adele could grow anywhere. The Boy needs special conditions to grow. I think he will be fine in the long run once he knows how to take care of himself.
This weekend, I am feeling therapeutically woke, as the Boy says about himself. I have more to go, but when I saw the new parents this weekend, I realize how far I have come in the past ten months. I can see these new parents who aren't fully aware yet of what they need to do to connect with their kids as their kids are learning new skills.
This blog is about the little and big thoughts that pop into my head. I once read that when Flannery O'Connor walked into a bookstore, she would want to edit her published works with a red pen. In the digital world, we have the luxury of tweaking things up after we've hit the publish button. I can be a perfectionist/procrastinator, where waiting for the ideal means little gets done. Here I will share what is not--and likely will never be--perfect.
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