The unsaid follow-up to "you're so strong" could be "I'd fuckng snap like a twig."

This conversation is giving me lots of ideas for a column on parenting special needs kids.

But, zenkitty, sacrifice, even of the banal variety, is part of any gift. Like I can spend the $X on a person (and I hope to do it thoughtfully) or I can have that $X for myself.

Gifts can be a expression of plenty. I mean, I do get the sacrifice POV, and I often have it, but... there are times when it is sharing in bounty, for the joy of it.

Of course, this is why potlatches were banned...

I think some of us worry we'd be those awful parents who abandon their six halfgrown children at a hospital in Nebraska when they pass a dropoff law. Er, but that would be why I has no childrens. Nor pets. Ahem.

Interesting convos here today! Sad I was all worky and couldn't chat during.

There's nearly 1 million suicides per year who might disagree with this statement, if they weren't too busy being dead.

Tcha! Well, that's why it's a SIN, sillyhead!

I want to take the Pew religion quiz, and think I'd do well, but the site is still down.

This morning as I drove three hours away (Wenatchee....home of apples...) I had to keep changing radio stations, and ended up listening to talk radio at one point...but RANDOM talk radio. Not conservative, but not idea WHAT it was...these two guys, chatting for a while about the new TLC "Sisterwives" show, and basically saying "having four wives sounds like way more work than I'm up for, but sure, if they're all consenting adults and not trying to somehow game the system, why get all up in their business? Why should we have laws against this? Aren't bigamy laws for...er...if they don't know about the other spouse? Let the gays and the polygamists do their thing, sure! But that guy seems like a douche, so the cops should go after him for being a douche" And I was a bit shocked. And then they were doing some kind of Bible "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" with each other. But in a very not-serious-of-religion way. Except not all sarcastic or anything. WTF??

I'm trying to stop myself from saying "you're stronger than I am" or "I don't know how you do it" anymore, because I've come to realize that it's just a euphemism for "dude, your situation sucks, and my choice not to be a parent (etc.) is totally validated!" And that's, uh, more douchey than I'd like to be, I guess.

One of my mom's pet peeves was "I know how you feel". You may have gone through a similar experience, but you aren't me.

You really can't win with expressions of sympathy, apparently.

I think that you can, you should try to avoid platitudes. You can say "I'm sorry, is there anything I can do?" pretty inoffensively, I think.

ION, JZ took Matilda with her to pick up her Dad at the airport tonight. First thing Matilda told her Papou?

"I'm going to a new school and my new teacher's name is Helen."

So far so good.

Good. Glad to hear it. I have high hopes for Matilda`s new school.
 
I am pretty sure I said, "I don`t know how you do it." to you & K, Kat. Oops. I say it to pretty much every parent, but yeah, I can see how there`s not really a good answer to that no matter how it`s intended. So, I apologize.
 
The SO & I saw a cutiepants Asian family in the Japanese garden at the Albuquerque botanical gardens this weekend and I was teasing him about deciding not to have kids. They had two little girls with adorable matching (not identical, mind you, complementary) hats. Of course if I actually had kids, we would never manage to get them out of the house to awesome outings like the botanical gardens, much less in complementary outfits.