Honestly . . .

George is dead.

Piper's frog is draped like a tragic figure over a hard cold rock, his sightless eyes causing me no end of grief.

I killed him.

I did.

I forgot to buy his crickets and he went a whole week without eating.

The worst is that while he was slowly starving to death, I've never eaten so well in my whole life.

Thanksgiving . . . sob sob sob . . . not for George.

Finnegan comforted us during dinner as Piper's eyes filled with tears, his voice soft and sweet, "Listen, Piper, he had a good last life. He ate a big cricket and had a clean cage with clean water. It isn't soooo bad. It's a good last life."

Bah.

Honestly.

While I was vacuuming and trying hard to NOT look at George in his cage (because there was NO WAY I was going to touch his tiny dead at my hands corpse), I began playing my favorite game of all, Let Me Count the Ways I'm Failing as a Mother.

Oh, I am a master at this game.

A GENIUS really.

There I was listing off my horrific lapses in good parenting--letting PIper go to bed with un-brushed hair, believing even thought I seriously doubt the truth that they DID indeed brush their teeth, not working on Henry's last merit badge, getting frustrated with Celia TWICE, BUYING dinner, not writing the thank you notes, not recording Piper's reading minutes, letting Celia read Frog and Toad instead of her fat grade level book, and on and on (and we're just counting today's lapses)--when I had this thought: Ok, so you're great at failing, is there anything good you've done?

I know I keep coming back to this theme, and seriously, I am super dense because I can't seem to learn it, but WHY ON EARTH DO WE ALWAYS SEE THE WORST IN OURSELVES? Or maybe you don't, but why do I?

I had this moment over the best Thanksgiving week EVER (it really and truly was--I can't even write about it because I myself didn't believe in my wildest dreams it could be that peaceful, lovely, delicious, and most of all relaxing. Suffice it to say, many happy happy tears of thanksgiving were shed) when I was a little/lot tired one morning when everyone was asking me what was happening and had been asking me for two hours what was happening and no one was doing anything to make those things happen, that I had this moment of grumpy STOP ASKING ME AND JUST GET IN THE CAR SO WE CAN DO THE THINGS YOU'VE BEEN ASKING ABOUT moment.

I felt sick about it. The whole ride to the Museum of Art. The whole time we were at the Nickel-cade. While we were eating pizza and watching a movie. I was sick and felt horrible and bad.

Why?

Because I'd failed.

Who had I failed?

Myself.

My perfect-never-gets-angry-at-anyone-because-they-don't-deserve-it-and-I'm-stupid-to-feel-that-irrational-human-messy-emotion self had gotten messy and . . . MAD.

In fact, it wasn't until I was driving home from bringing some child home from some activity, that I thought, Wait, if any of my family or friends got frustrated (and they don't often, but they all do from time to time), I'd think, Oh, well, they need a little space to figure stuff out. And I'd give them space. And then I wouldn't really even think about it much. I wouldn't care.

GAhh! Why am I such an idiot to myself? From now on, I will always buy crickets THE day they run out and I will attempt to give myself space to figure stuff out. Hum. Let's see if I get at least one of these things right.

For the sake of all future Georges, I hope so . . .

Life lesson #209-70983423k.

Oh, did I mention that there were 24 people staying in my house? It was AWESOME! Seas of air mattresses and blankets and pillows, no sleeping ever, and laughter that shook the house at 1am. Loved loved loved every minutes (well, except for the aforementioned lapse) of it!

Thank you!

Now, here are a few photos of the weekend: