Don't Worry 'bout a Thing

When I freelance,after I send an article or story in, I sit on the computer. I leave my e-mail open, and will it to show new mail. I peek at it all day long and then pretend that I did no such thing. When I make the baby' bottle at 2:45 in the morning I tiptoe, bleary-eyed and without my glasses to the computer to see if the editor wrote back. I sit on that story or article with a gun to its head. "Accept my story! Or this article gets it!"

I cannot leave good enough alone. Living with a variable is hard.

So multiply that a multiple amount of time, this inability to live with an unknown. Say your landlord--completely hypothetically of course!--tells you one day that he's selling, the next day maybe not, the third day selling and also but maybe not selling...yeah, I have no hair left in my scalp.

I have often thought of how wonderful it was that kids' skin and bones heal so quickly. How quickly they bounce back from a fall! But also, this afternoon, Coco-pop was playing with a friend in her room. This involved piling every toy we own onto her bed and making a three foot high Ima-Will-Cry-When-She-Sees-This. ANYWAY, they were busy turning my hair grey (I guess I do have a few strands left just for that purpose) and I escaped to the bathroom to resist the urge to straighten as they sit there playing. Because yes, I am that crazy. Also, I had to go to the bathroom. Turtle had been smearing eating a peanut butter cracker sandwhich, but in my momentary absence galloped at full crawl into Coco-pop's room.

"Ima!" She shrieked.

"Yeah?" I called from the bathroom.

"He's ruining everything!"

I sighed. "Coco-pop, I'm in the bathroom."

"But Ima!"

I waited a beat. I hate this, I always have to rush out of the bath--

"Okay!" I heard Coco-pop's sweet little voice. "So it's his birthday and so the tower is a cake and he can eat the whole thing!"

The variable, effortlessly incorporated into her reality.

I have so much to learn from my 4 year-old.