A Thousand Words Thursday (one day early)

I think we've established the ground rules around here, right?  So, we all know that Betty Homemaker and I have virtually nothing in common and that's okay. The lack of a Betty Homemaker gene occasionally gives me odd sensations that a normal person might interpret as (dare I say it?) guilt.  I assumed I was immune to this emotion, ten years into the parenting game having made me numb to...well...pretty much anything that could possibly be thrown at me.
For example, Sophie's six-month-old Girl Scout badges are still sitting in a drawer next to a needle and thread and not where they're supposed to be (on the back of Sophie's vest)?  Oops.  Moving on.  Little or no guilt for me, here.  She's the one who sewed the darn 'sit-upon' cushion in Brownies, not me.  Clearly, she's got more experience in this arena than I do, so why can't she do it?  Better yet, take it to grandma's house and see if she'll do it, I vaguely remember her sewing buttons back on a blouse when I was kid, so it should be a cakewalk.  I'm not good with sharp objects.

Allie's walking around in shoes so small she can't feel her toes?  No big deal.  I figure if she's old enough to tell me what she does, and does not, like to wear, eat, watch, read or do, then she's perfectly capable of telling me about the blisters she's developed from wearing outgrown shoes.  She narks on her sister for lesser offenses, after all.  Tell me what the problem is and I'll fix it!  I'll buy bigger shoes!  Don't expect me to figure it out through osmosis.  Just because she was walking funny for a week doesn't mean I'm going to assume her feet hurt.  I thought she was playing 'pretend'.  Wrong.  Still, no guilt for me.  (okay, maybe a teensy-tiny bit, a little flicker, because I don't want the kid to be in pain.)

 I thought I had a heart of steel where mommy guilt was concerned until I came home one night, parked the car in the garage and came upon 'THE NOTE'. The message, written by my ten-year-old, had been Scotch-taped (at my eye level) to the door leading from the garage to the front hallway of our house.  The message is clear.  Concise.  To the point.  The question is how long had the kid been asking me for popcorn?  How long had I been ignoring this request?  How was it that she was so desperate for popcorn that she had to scribble a message on binder paper and tape it where I was sure to see it?  The note reminded me of a white flag of surrender.  She might as well have handed me the note and said, "Since you're going to ignore me, anyway, why waste my breath?"  Hit me like a ton of bricks.

At our house, I've come to the conclusion that microwave popcorn smells like ass.  The odor lingers like stale cigar smoke after an all-night poker game and it tastes like sytrofoam with salt.   Popcorn should be cooked on the stove in a pot with some oil.  Drizzle real butter on it, not some funky flavoring dreamed up by a chemist in India.  Once my darling daughter got a taste of real popcorn, the microwave version just didn't measure up, which was fine by me, all things considered.  Unfortunately,  while Sophie is allowed to operate the microwave, the gas stove is off limits.  Either I pop the corn or it isn't getting popped. Period. (Yes, her dad is allowed to use the stove, but he avoids it as much I'd like to.  Asking him to pop it would be like asking him to squeeze water out of a rock.)

It's the little things that sneak up and kick you in that guilt center of your brain when you aren't expecting it.  This may have been her point all along, of course, a little 'manipulation' to get mom motivated.  Well, it worked.   She had popcorn for dinner that night.  A huge mixing bowl filled with salted, buttery popcorn....only now?  I feel guilty about giving her popcorn for dinner....but just a little.