Everything That I Do

Avee is sobbing hysterically on the couch. I'm tough, but not so callous that I haven't tried to comfort her. 4 times. I've been punched 6 times. So I'm going to let the plastic hanger she's trapped her legs in, console her.

I took Bo and Avee to run a few errands, the last of which was the post office. I hate the post office. With a passion greater than these words can convey. I hate their prices, I hate their lines, I hate how 9 out of 10 of the employees aren't friendly because they don't have to be, and I hate their lines. Oops. Already said that.

So anyway, Bo and Avee have been delightful errand companions and I'm thinking this mothering gig just might be something I can do. As I approach the counter and plunk my stuff down, I hear the employee two stations over gasp. I turn and she's pointing in my direction and says, "Honey, you need to get down from there right now." I turn around, and there's pretty little Avee perched on the counter, happy as can be. I laughed that just two seconds before, she had been hanging on my legs, and suddenly, there she was 4 feet off the ground. I also laughed that a child dangling her little legs a few feet off the ground had made the worker gasp and insist Avee get down immediately.

I don't think she should climb on counters, just out of basic respect for public property, that's not what we do at post offices, etc. But acting like she was in mortal danger was a little much for me.

Apparently my little giggle was too much for Avee.

A couple of minutes afterward, I looked down to see Avee hiding her face and periodically flinging her arm out to hit in mine and Bo's general direction.

I seize the moment to show what a good, kind, attentive, caring, and intuitive mother I am. I pick Avee up and say gently, "No one is mad at you, it's okay---we just can't climb on things in the post office, this isn't a place for climbing." By "we" I meant "you" because I generally don't climb anything anymore.

So I get about 3/4 of the way through that brilliant little parenting moment and Avee slugs me and squirms from my arms. That's the other thing I hate about the post office. I couldn't really kick her in the kidneys like I wanted to, and I couldn't address the issue in any way because I still had to pay for the dang packages.

She nailed me a couple of more times in the thigh before I was done.

I dragged her out the door by her hair arm and gave her a whatfor outside the door.

I don't care how mad you are, or who you are mad at, you do not hit, it is not okay for you to hit me!

That's really how a parent. In unrealistic definitives through gritted teeth. If you must know.

In turn, Avee flung herself against the post office window I had just seen being cleaned as we walked in. There's a nice body print on it now.

Halfway home, with her wailing and me counting backwards from a million, to keep my cool, I think to ask her why she's so sad.

It's then that I learn that it was because of my teeny, tiny, millisecond laugh as I hoisted her off the counter.

Oh PUHLEEEEEEEEEASE!

Now I can't laugh? Is everything I do going to constantly be under scrutiny. We don't say shut up, we don't say stupid, we don't say butt. And NOW we don't laugh at funny little girls. At least not at the post office.

Bossy little dramatic girls make me want to fling myself at stupid post office windows.

We don't say stupid.