parenting

Yesterday when Leta got home from school she sat down at the island in the kitchen to have a snack and tell me about her day. I like to give her some down time before practicing piano, homework, and fixing me a hot dog.

She was telling me about the books she had checked out at the library when I got a text from my mother, and can I just take this opportunity to sing a hallelujah unto the Lord, Our God, Savior of the world even though technically I am not worthy to do so? My mom is TEXTING. This… this changes everything. She is notoriously incapable of talking for more than thirty seconds on the phone, so this medium is perfect for her. You know, just a quick four word text here, a “yes” and “I’m fine” there. I feel like she is Marie and she just found her Donny.

I don’t know if you saw the photo I posted of the girls engaged in a warm embrace yesterday, but sometimes I like to play around with my family because I know that they are reading my site. The dynamic in my family is full of humor, so I can be sure that when my staunchly conservative father pulls up this post and reads, “I once had lunch with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,” he will know that I wrote it just for him. And he will smirk and resist the urge to call me a turd out loud.

It’s true. I did once have lunch with Harry Reid. We talked about knitting. You should have seen his sweater.

Anyway. I asked Leta to give me one second while I read my mother’s text:

Of course I started laughing, and Leta asked me what was so funny. I explained that I had written something on my website to pull my mother’s chain and it had worked. She didn’t understand, so I continued, “I wrote something to make her roll her eyes, and I’m laughing because she called me a butt head.”

“She called you a butt head?!” she screamed, completely unable to comprehend how the Avon World Sales Leader could expose such a dark side.

“It’s okay,” I said. “We joke around with each other like that. It’s actually pretty funny.”

“Mom,” she said, her arms crossed authoritatively over her chest. “It is NOT OKAY.”

“It’s not?” I asked.

“She called you a butt head. The next time I see her I am going to tell her that she needs to apologize to you.”

“You are?”

“Yes. Of course,” she said. “That is not a nice thing to call someone.”

“You’re right,” I told her. “You tell Grandmommy that she needs to find some manners.”

Mom, Leta has a few things to say to you, and when she asks you why you let me quit piano lessons but I won’t let her quit, just know that when she asked me the same question I told her it was because you didn’t love me. And that I had to sleep in the shed.