Hec, I want you to know that your "good enough" advice was the biggest kindness ever paid me, when I was a young mother. I was hellbent on unachievable perfection and my anxiety disorder kept me in constant pursuit of it. You (and, well, meds) woke me up and made life more bearable.

Awww, thanks, Cindy. I have to say that (so far) the results with Emmett and Matilda have been encouraging. I should send you some new pictures of them.

For those of you who follow along on FB, you know that Matilda got her ears pierced this week. What I didn't mention there is that we wound up having some complications with the piercings. They were really hurting her and the sharp ends of the posts were jabbing into her neck when she slept, and the backings were pinching and tight.

My friend suggested I take her back to Claire's to get softer backings. And when we took her in they were concerned that the studs were getting embedded in her ears.

They took off the metal butterfly back on one stud easily.

But the other one would not come off. And they had to wrestle with it for fifteen minutes there in the store. Matilda was very brave but it really started to hurt a lot and she busted out wailing in tears - which drew lots of frightened looks from other kids lined up to get their ears pierced.

Oof, there's nothing worse than seeing your kid in pain and there's nothing you can do but move forward to get to the solution. Which we did eventually after many many tears and sobs.

But it made a huge difference in her comfort level immediately. The backing had been pinching so back and causing her a lot of pain.

Anyway, all is well now. And half her hair is now dyed purple.

First day of school tomorrow! Fifth grade beckons.

Aw, poor Matilda.

Oh poor kiddo! My ears hurt just reading the tale.

Oof, I feel for Matilda! poor kid!

But her hair looks great!

I had a terrible time with my ears and piercings, either with infections, cysts or growing closed. I finally just gave up on it. Hopefully that doesn't happen to Matilda because she has such a great sense of style and she'd use earrings well.

Poor, Matilda. That sounds terrible. The purple hair is awesome, though. My public school had a policy against unnatural hair colors. Is that not a thing anymore?

I try to remind myself of the good enough parenting as often as I can, but it is hard sometimes with everyone and their opinions.

Poor Matilda. Glad it is solved, and yay purple hair!

Yep, I hope it didn't seem like I was criticizing your reaction, that was not my intention. Burrell's comment that she doesn't have a good grasp of boundaries (especially knowing this is a common issue among some of your friends) seems right on to me.

I am trying to remember how to set up my backpacking tent. Possibly I should have tried this more than 4 days before we leave. @@ at self.

It's been a very busy weekend and I've felt ill during a lot of it. On Saturday though, we went to visit my parents to celebrate Em's 17th birthday.

Here she is: [link]

A picture with her boyfriend she really didn't want taken: [link]

Em looks lovely, Gud. Happy 17th to her! And I hope you're feeling better.

17! Wow.