Mark, after a weekend of seasonal allergy-related coughing, woke up this morning pale and listless, brushed his teeth, and promptly threw up. Poor guy. By mid-morning he seemed to recover, and as I write this he is playing a loud game with his brother, one of their favourites in which they are brainstorming different and exotic ways to destroy their arch-enemy, Mickey Mouse.
Fortunately we are not planning a trip to Disneyland anytime soon.
It was a tough weekend for Mark. We had Visitors, and one Visitor made it perfectly clear that, how shall I say this delicately, this Visitor has a strong preference for one of my children, and that preferred child was emphatically not Mark. It’s hard to see your child dissolve into a puddle of hurt feelings, especially when the hurt feelings are caused by a person who should, I think, not have such strong preferences.
So I was stewing about this, and I’ve come to the following conclusions:
a) Much as I would like to, I cannot control other’s behaviour, I can only control my own;
b) I also cannot control how other people feel and force them to behave more equitably;
c) If I was actually to bring this up to said person, the situation would not change perceptibly but then there would be awkwardness and emotional outbursts added to the equation;
d) I had better just blog about it rather than bring it up, which has limited upside as far as I can see.
Very, very unsatisfactory conclusion.
In other news, I received a flyer for a nearby estate sale. One of the treasures, as advertised in the flyer, is an antique cookie jar in the shape of Mammy from Gone With The Wind. Hoo boy! If that is one of the highlights, I just can’t wait to get to that estate sale! That would go so great with all my other completely inappropriate and racially-offensive cookie jar related items.
Sigh. That failed to cheer me. Anyone want to share their stories about children being treated inequitably by a “Visitor”? Or a good story about a cookie jar? Either way I need cheering up.
I just hate those days that start with barf. It almost always involves cleaning which I also hate. HHMMMM, I was supposed to cheer you up wasn’t I? You are so right that we can’t control what others do or say to our kids but it feels crappy when one of yours is treated unfairly. We took a parent effectiveness training, PET,class years ago (truthfully, we only went to one night of the 12 week series but that’s beside the point) They talked about rectangles, two people in a relationship, and how we should never make a triangle. Love the philosophy even though most of the time I’m terrible at it and meddle in my kids affairs! From one Mom home with a sick kid to another, sometimes being in a bad mood just gets you through a Monday. Tuesday has to be better (as long as the barfing stops)
My son is absolutely in awe of an older cousin. He loves him to bits. When his cousin was a little younger he loved my son to bits too but now this cousin is in the pre-teen years and too cool to hang with my son so he usually sits on the couch and acts bored while my son begs him to play. I know this will only get worse and I hate it. I can’t change the behavior of the cousin because I know what it’s like to be that age. But it hurts me to see my son brushed off. It sucks the big suck and like you I don’t really see a way to fix it.
Is it perhaps a matter of the Visitor being more attuned to the younger boy’s developmental stage? My dad likes my kids now that they can lip-off to him. Honest. He has no interest in babies, but a mouthy elementary kid w/ strong opinions? LOVE!
A Mammy cookie jar is on-par with putting statue of an african-american man dressed as a jockey on your front lawn.
A friend of mine liked cats. NOt a strong love, but she did like cats. This got out among the ladies in her church and for her wedding shower she received EIGHT cat shaped cookie jars.
All Eight were either returned, re-gifted and in one case, dropped from a great height to see the smash.
As for preferential treatment, my sis has good stories on that one. My son got a better gift from HER in-laws than her daughter did because boys rock and girls are just tolerated.
She just spits in their coffee when they are not looking:). (Kidding. I hope.)
I had someone in my life who dramatically preferred four of my children over one of my children. Luckily, the unpreferred child was too oblivious to notice, or else I would have had to kill Someone. And also, luckily, Someone died! End of problem!
I got nothing funny, but I can send you some cyber HUGS! I hope that you are feeling better today. 🙂
I have a cookie jar of snow white with her legs wrapped around a big apple. I once had one given to me that was in the shape of a cow that mooed when you opened it ….another one in the shape of a duck with a towel draped over the wing – WTF is the towel for and who wants to reach inside the duck for a treat anyway . I should seriously rethink having a cookie jar collection