In Which I Suddenly Realize That I Am the Problem

I've been crap at jotting down things to write about which means I have nothing to write about and also that I clearly don't know myself at all. Let's talk about how I keep thinking that Eve is five instead of seventeen and assuming she can't do stuff when she most certainly can do stuff. I mean, I'm not necessarily the type of mom that tells her kids "you can do anything you want if you just believe in yourself!" (My friend Collette (HI COLLETTE) has a funny story about this that happened at her daughter's diving competition - the mom behind her said to her daughter "I KNEW you'd come in first if you just BELIEVED" - she came in first because she was the only one in her age class). I mean, I knew my kids were smart and I tried to teach them critical thinking and I figured they could do a lot of things, but not, like, fly (or even ride a bike, in Eve's case - sorry babe, my fault you were born without balance), or do magic, or ride a unicorn - wait, that's basically flying, I'm being repetitive.

I like to keep our expectations reasonable, is all I'm saying. The year before Angus's baseball team could qualify for the Little League World Series, my sister asked when it was so she could book time off at work. "Pfagh!" I laugh-snorted unattractively "they're not going to the Little League World Series. B.C. always wins. Don't bother booking time off for that." Well, they went to the Little League World Series and my sister had to drive all night to see one game and then go to work the day after on no sleep (no problem, not like being a pharmacist at a hospital chemo center requires alertness or anything) and I was not terribly popular.

Wait, this started as me trying to illustrate that I might coddle my kids a little and has somehow morphed into me being a loser who doesn't believe in her kids. And now I'm suddenly remembering that I didn't give baby Angus pretzels because they were a choking hazard, then sort of forgot about pretzels for three years and when he finally got pretzels as a four-year-old he looked at me like I was some kind of pretzel-hiding asshole. This is terrible! Hang on, I have to go tell Angus he actually can go to med school if he wants to. And maybe bring him some pretzels.

Anyway, Eve decided to repaint her room because we weren't doing Bluesfest. I thought we would make a playlist, crank the tunes and do it together i.e. I would do most of the work. Nuh-uh. My husband helped her move some furniture, but she taped, edged, and rolled on three coats of paint per wall (and it's a big room!). I was extremely impressed. I took her to IKEA to get her a few new things to match the new colours. The main thing she wanted was a tall set of drawers to go with her desk, which only has two little ones. We got to the self-serve warehouse, I tried to lift the box and said "shit, I can't lift this by myself, we'll have to find someone to help us." She raised her eyebrows at me, went and got a trolley and grabbed one end and waited for me to grab the other. Then she told ME not to hurt myself.

When we got to the car, I opened the hatch and told her to hold the cart while I slid the box out to where we could both grab it. She said "No! YOU hold!" Then we got home and she built the frigging thing herself. Last time I tried to build something from IKEA I had to get my husband to help me open the box.

She is salty that you can't tell how much work went into assembling each drawer when it's put together like this

I will post more pictures of Eve's room when we (I mean, she) gets it all put back together. And I guess I'll go buy one of those goddamned "reach for the moon" or whatever the hell posters, since clearly I am a serious impediment to soaring or envisioning or carpe-ing the goddamned diem.