Skip to main content

Weak Link

 I'm the place chain letters come to die.  I'd forgotten about these gems until a friend recently asked if she could send one to our boys.  I acquiesced because, dang it, I'm an adult.  In the past, I've had the best of intentions with recipe chain letters, socks chain letters, and every variety that came through the mail in the nineties.  I have had approximately zero success at following through on these intentions.  Surely, I've matured in this area of sending mail.  

Nope. 

No, I have not.  

The guilt and the shame are familiar.  Every time I look in the direction of the "to deal with" pile and see the neatly folded papers waiting to be addressed, I shudder.  I need to deal with you.  There are kids depending on me, darn it!  I can't.  I just can't.  I will.  Maybe.  

Here's the thing, I'm happy to send the package of stickers or whatever to the first person on the list.  It's the passing it on that kills me.  My dilemma is that I either have to pass it on to someone I have a really good relationship with and who will love me anyway, or I have to send them to people I know, but don't really care what they think of me.  

You guys in between are safe.  

I'm not sure I know four families who fit either of those criteria.  So if you want a chain letter that guarantees your kid will be sent stickers from sixteen different people, just send your address my way.  

Otherwise, I'm sending one letter to each of my sister's four kids.  She has to love me.  It's Biblical.      

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Advanced Placement

 Not to brag or anything, but I think we are raising some very advanced children.  At two-years-of-age, our girls have already worked out the art of manipulation and deflection.  It's the antithesis of endearing.   They went missing the other day - the girls did.  That's never a good situation.  They were in the house, and I knew they were in the house, but I couldn't see or hear them.  Silence is the loudest alarm system.  Fischer took action and found them both in my bathroom.   "MOM!" I met them in the hall.  Carter was covered in clumps and blobs of hand cream. "Emi did it," was her unsolicited response.   "No," I told her.  "I think you  did it." That night I got ready for bed and pulled out my one "self-care" splurge - my face cream .  It was in my drawer where I always keep it.  The lid was screwed on.  And it was empty, wiped clean.  "EmmmeerrrrrSON!" Guilty.  They were both ...

I Need A Cinderella

 I like to describe our house as very "lived in."  It sounds better than "dirty."  It is dirty.  And messy.  I clean all day long, but you'd never know.  My friend recently told me she hires a house cleaner.  It sounds dreamy, but it wouldn't work for us.  The cleaner would never be able to leave.  She'd never be done.  It's fine.  It's a phase.  Probably.   We were supposed to have guests for dinner the other week.  I know - it's a bold move inviting people over while we are in this stage of life.  Nonetheless, we did.  I was trying to get ahead of the mess while the kids were in bed and cleaned my floors the night before the dinner party.  The day of the dinner, everybody was sick so we had to postpone.   I decided I wasn't going to let a clean floor go to waste.  I was going to enjoy it for at least a weekend.  The challenge, I told myself, was simply to sweep things up after...

Sheltering in Place

In the past three months Corona Virus has more or less turned the world on its head.  I feel almost guilty for not being more stressed or put out by the whole thing.  We have been extremely fortunate. What we thought was a most impractical move on our part, wound up being a huge blessing.  With our two boys and our two newborns, we moved out of our house with no yard in the city limits and into my parents' house in the country while waiting for our new house to be completed.  The weekend we moved "quarantine," "social distancing," and "shelter in place" became the new mantra of our state.   Moving in with my parents meant ten plus acres of play space and two extra able bodied adults to help even out the score with the four kids.  Win for the St. Clair's!  Unfortunately, my parents are beginning to realize they may have made an error in judgement.   Yesterday, Sawyer gave their cat swimming lessons.   Last week th...