Keeping Me Humble

My kids are very good at keeping me humble. They're the first to tell me how great I am, but they're also the first to point out my weaknesses. And they somehow manage to do it in a completely innocent, non-judging sort of way, leaving me unable to feel resentment toward them like I might with other people pointing out my inadequacies.

For example, I've been feeling pretty good about myself physically lately. Brent and I have been exercising regularly, we've been trying to eat healthier, and our bodies are starting to show us the results. It feels good. So to bring me back to reality, here are a couple of conversations I've had lately with the littles.

Tink (while watching me do my make-up): Mom, what's that?

Me: A zit.

Tink (with a look of disgust-mixed-with-curiosity-mixed-with-horror on her face as her finger slowly makes its way up to my face. She almost touches it, but then pulls her hand back as if it might be contagious): Why is it so big and red?

Me: Because it was a big zit under the skin that hurt really bad so I tried to pop it too early and instead created a crater on my face.

Tink: Oh. Why do you have so many zits?

Me: Because I don't have a baby in my tummy. (One of my favorite things about being pregnant is the way my skin clears up. Post-partem, it all goes down the tubes again.)

I'm sure I completely confused the poor girl as to how a baby in my tummy could have anything to do with red dots on my face.

After this part of the conversation, I was feeling very paranoid about my crater-zit, so I tried to cover it up with a little cover-up concealer stick, which I NEVER use since putting anything on my skin usually just causes the break-outs to get worse.

Tink: What's that stuff?

Me: Stuff to try to cover up the zit and make it look less red.

Tink (after watching my pathetic attempts): It's not working, Mommy.

Me: I know. :(

------------ A few minutes later --------------

Tink (while watching me pluck my eyebrows): What are all those black dots on your face? (Around my eyebrows.)

Me: Hairs.

Tink: Why are they all around your eyebrows? That's not where they're supposed to grow.

Me: I know. Because life's unfair.


See? Keeping me humble. And to be fair to Tink, when I was all done with my make-up, she stood back to take a good look at me and said, "Mommy, you wook bootiful." Thanks, Tink. That almost makes up for the plummet in my self-esteem.

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Another day, the girls were all playing with my hair. Roo decided to join in. (I LOVE it when they brush and play with my hair. It's one of my favorite things. I get into a zen-like trance and can't think straight.)

Roo: Mom, your hair is getting long!

Me: I know! Isn't it exciting?

Roo: Yeah, but I can see some hairs in here that aren't the same.

Me: I know, Roo.

Roo: They're white, Mom.

Me (losing my zen): I know, Roo.

Roo: There's a lot of them, Mom.

Me (zen flies out the window) : I know, Roo. Let's all play the Quiet-Game while we brush Mommy's hair now!



I have now decided that when I create my own worlds, there will be a law-of-nature that says that a person can't have zits and white hairs at the same time. And if she's 30 years old, she can't have either of them. Yeah, that's a good law.