steaming isn't the same thing as vaping

Right now I am steaming mad.  I got up this morning, meaning to write a blog post about something on my mind.  Then I saw a post on Facebook and saw red.  It also hurt me, because it brought back my own memories and how easy it is to hurt someone's feelings.

School started just days ago for my grandkids, and already the cruelty has started.  My daughter posted on Facebook that some little girl had told my granddaughter Maddie that she is ugly.  Maddie told Jen about it with tears in her eyes.  As I read the comments from Jen's friends and family reassuring Maddie that she is beautiful, I felt something else.

I felt anger.  And shame.

Anger for all the times I remember enduring things people said that were hurtful.  I keenly remember how unkind words can rip at self esteem at a time when it is fragile and growing.  I remember wondering if maybe the person who said the ugly words was right, and what they said was true.  I remember wondering what I had done to deserve the words.  I know now I had done nothing, but because I reacted to the words at the time, a few other kids joined in, and hammered me pretty relentlessly for a time, until they tired of the game and moved on to new prey.  Back then we knew what bullies were, and these girls were bullies.  I know now that I wasn't much different than the other kids.  But it was the ability to make me THINK I was different that gave this small group of cruel girls the power to hurt me.

Shame.  I feel shame for all the times I have said cruel things to other people.  I see how hurt Maddie is, and realize how the mean things I have said over the years to other people have hurt them. Sometimes it was unintentional, but sometimes I said things deliberately to hurt others, when I had been hurt.  There is no way to be unhurt by words, and saying cruel things to others doesn't undo what has been done to me, and this was brought home to me by Maddie's reaction to that little girl.

That is what I want Maddie to understand.  How we treat others has a lasting impact.  Words hurt, but it is important to understand that the person saying the words doesn't really know her.  The person saying the words is trying to hurt her, to get a reaction from her.  If I could, I would give Maddie the strength to laugh in the face of anyone who says anything mean, because words like that, in the end, are not what is important.

The important thing to understand is her own worth as a person, and to understand that people say things for different reasons.  I could go on and on about the whys of it, but the important thing is to know the truth.  That we all ride on the same planet, and in the end, there isn't much different about us.  We are the only species that tries to feel like we are different from each other, and better than each other.  But we aren't.  We are all one family.  The family of man.

That sounds a little smarmy.  I would still love to grab that little girl by the ear and ask her just what she means by those ugly words.

But Grammys shouldn't act like that.

Most of the time.


...life is good. ~cat
i am @jonesbabie on twitter

talk to the hand

There is no end a Grammy will go to when she is trying to maintain peace in her house.  Especially when that is a fragile peace that has run amok because the two year old has smacked the six year old with a push toy, and the six year old is crying like he is dying, and the two year old looks like he is clueless about the whole thing.

I am a relaxed housewife, and grandmother.  Solutions like this one come easy:

1. John smacks Dunc with the above mentioned toy.
2. Dunc starts crying.
3. I am deep in the middle of a painting and trying to juggle research for a project at work at the same time.
4. I look up and see the whole family in my small work room.  (Stevie Wonder and all three grandkids.  Jack is the only GMIA*)  *GMIA=grandchild missing in action
5. I know I have to come up with something fast to get them out, before my creative well runs dry.
6. I try to soothe Dunc, but quickly notice he is milking it for all it is worth.

7. I tell him in a loud, dramatic tone of voice "oh my Dunc, it looks like you might lose that finger, I better do something fast!" (I am not sure which finger it is, they all look fine, so I ask Dunc and after pointing to a couple spots, we settle on the worst one.  It looks just like his other nine fingers.)
8. I tell Stevie W. to get the first aid kit.  He is clueless at this point and tries some fake move, like "we better stitch it up" and I look at him STERNLY and say "GET ME THE FIRST AID KIT NOW!"  He goes to get it.  I tell him to bring the gauze rolls too.
9. He brings everything we have for first aid back to me (he may be slow out of the gate, but he is good for the distance).
10. I unroll some gauze.  At that point Maddie scoffs and says "there's NOTHING WRONG with his hand Grammy".  I look her in the eye and say loudly "OH BUT THERE IS!"  and proceed to start wrapping his hand.  Maddie gets a look on her face that is somewhere between wanting to laugh and looking like she just bit a lemon.

11. Dunc is really into it now.  He holds his hand very still while I wrap it in gauze.  And tape it.  All done with my most professional Nurse Grammy attitude.  Steve has started to laugh by now and left the room.  Dunc's face is 1/2 inch from his hand as I finish taping it. Examining it.  Maddie still has that sour, laughing smirk on her face, her lips pursed tightly together.  As though she knows I am faking this, but she won't say it, just in case Dunc really is wounded.  But she knows.
12. Dunc (who stopped crying the minute I opened the roll of gauze), walks off, staring in fascination at his hand.

13. Maddie looks at me.  Lips still pressed together.  I ask her if she wants her wounds bandaged.  She just grins bigger.  And I know right then, she won't admit she isn't wounded, because if she wants to be part of this, she has to ACT the part.
14. I wrap her hand, she walks off loving every bit of the whole episode, and then I notice.
15. John standing there with his mouth open, wondering what the heck he has just witnessed.  He has no idea what it was, but Maddie and Dunc have something he doesn't.  So I grab the paper tape and put a piece on his hand, in the same place, minus the gauze, because I figure he will rip it right off.

The room has cleared.  I get back to painting.  And it took me less time to perform first aid than it did to write about it.

Score one for Nurse Grammy.

When John went home an hour later, he still had the tape on his hand.

Dunc and Maddie went to bed a while ago, bandages still in place on their hands.


...life is good.
~cath
Twitter @jonesbabie