The siege

Sophie had to sit in her chair for a long time tonight until she at least tried a bite of her ravioli. After many tears and a long time, she gave in and tried it. I won. Although as Ginger said, I won the battle, not the war.

Driving home from a meeting in Kentucky today, I listened to this, and was glad to have heard this:

A word now about our own families. Some of us are older; some are in mid passage; others have yet to begin. Some of us are parents, and some, grandparents. Grandparents have empty nests. Such emptyings are part of the plan, of course. Yet, since our flocks have left their nests, we find ourselves remembering and savoring precious days now irrevocably past. We listen in vain but with eager ears for children’s voices we once thought too shrill, too constant—even irritating. Yet that cacophony of children, which we once called noise, was actually sweet sound, a sound we yearn to hear again if we but could.

For the rest of you now amid the cacophony, seize the defining moments. Make more Mary-like choices and show less Martha-like anxiety. What are calories anyway, compared to special conversations? Of course, meals need to be served and consumed, but the mentoring memories will not be taken from you.

That is good advice. I am totally on board with that, but she had to at least try her dinner, right?

Two "Mary-like" moments I'm recording here for my own good, so I don't forget:

1. When I came home tonight I went to the end of the driveway to put away the garbage can, and heard Sophie's little bare feet sneaking up behind me. I turned around and she thought her sneakiness was very funny.
2. Yesterday afternoon she begged and begged me to stop working and play house with her. When I finally went to play house with her in the basement after dinner, she had a present that she had wrapped for me to open--which had been sitting down there all afternoon--and a birthday "cake" that we ate after she sang me happy birthday, even though it's not really my birthday.