Intermutuality

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Be the Lady in the Minivan You Want to See in the World

I had a rough week a few weeks ago. My Stuff just got so big and I had a hard time dealing.

This is just part of my process. I know what to do, and I know who my people are (I have a lot of people). So it’s going to be ok. I want to tell you a story though.

One of the Things I Can Do is to go to yoga class. Because having someone remind you to breathe for an hour straight is SO HELPFUL when it feels like you’ve forgotten how. So I took myself to a yoga class at Abide Yoga because I called them the morning after a bad night and had approximately this conversation with H, Yoga Studio Owner and Kind Phone Speaker:

K: Do you have any yoga that’s good for….anxiety….? I mean, I’ll be ok but right now I’m just…ugh…
H: Yes. Please come here.
K: Are you sure? I might cry. I’ll try to be quiet though. Because yoga.
H: Just come here. It’ll be ok.

So I did. After an hour of steady reminders (I did cry, and it was ok), I felt like I could breathe well again. I headed home in my van.

There’s a neighborhood I cut through to avoid the lights on the main streets by my house. I arrived at an intersection where there is no light, but it’s close to another light which was red and cars were lined up. I began to edge into the street to turn left.

A lady in a metallic blue jeep laid on the horn and started yelling at me through her open windows. “What the F*%< do you think you’re doing? STOP!” For her sake, I kind of hope she was just having a terrible day. But I digress.

I was…caught off guard. I called out feebly, “But…the light is red…” She was not convinced. She continued to yell while pulling directly in front of me and sitting there, middle finger extended angrily, until several seconds after her light turned green. Then she pulled away.

What the what?! I thought…but then I looked at the lady in the grey minivan behind her, who had watched the whole thing. She shrugged at me, gave me a kind smile, and waved at me to go in front of her.

I drove home, bemused.

I went back to yoga that afternoon because Abide was having a special day of free yoga for their first anniversary, because my husband is awesome and played with our kids all day, and because I still needed to remember to breathe more. After class was over, I told them the story and said, “Thank you for being the lady in the van today.”

Sometimes the world seems full of stress. It feels like one big middle finger. Ladies in metallic blue jeeps will yell at you, figuratively (and sometimes literally!) speaking. But if you look hard, after that, you can often find well-placed acts of loving kindness. A glass of water. A kind word from a friend or stranger. A yoga class. If you are stressed or otherwise unwell I hope for those things for you, and I hope you are given the grace to see them. It really makes all the difference.

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To the Girl Who Came Out to My High School Youth Group

People murmured uncomfortably to each other, “What’s she doing here?”

“I don’t know!”

“I mean, she came out. As a Lesbian. She likes girls!”

Churchgoers between worship services continued to whisper behind their hands and awkwardly avoid eye contact.

You stood there in the middle of the crowded lobby, not moving. Looking at people’s faces one by one. We made eye contact for a brief moment, and then you looked away to the next person as I uncomfortably averted my gaze. I had nothing to offer you. We knew each other but hadn’t been close, and I did not have a grid for how to accept or even understand your presence there because I had been taught that what you were claiming as your identity was an immoral action and so I should pass judgment on it. I was to love you by hating your sin. I was young and impressionable and didn’t yet know that loving someone should not involve voting “yes” or “no” on them before being their friend. So when someone I’d attended youth events with and known moderately well “admitted” to being gay and then came and stared at us on a Sunday morning, I didn’t know that maybe what you needed was for us to look at you like you were still a person; maybe you wanted to know you were still worthy of being looked in the eye and cared about. Better yet, for someone to say, “I don’t know how this works yet because there’s a lot of cultural baggage around this, but I care about you enough to try to figure it out.”

God forgive me.

~~~~~

A few years later, I was home visiting from college when I saw in the church bulletin that the teaching in a couple of weeks was to be on homosexuality. A few years in the school of music and a few key friendships in which I cared about actual gay people having informed my thinking, I emailed the pastor and asked him to please keep three things in mind:

1. That while many Christians think of being gay as a choice or action, most gay people think of being gay as an issue of identity.

2. That when you say that being gay is wrong, you are telling someone that the way they understand their identity is wrong.

3. That even if being gay is a sin, like gluttony or pride, we don’t make people stop doing those other things as a prerequisite for deserving our respect.

I wasn’t home the weekend he gave the teaching, so I don’t know whether my words had any impact. But I want you to know that by that point I had begun to see that our church had mishandled something important by not looking you in the eye that day.

~~~~~

If I go back and think about the day you stood there, I hope that someone in that whole crowd of professed Jesus followers was willing to stop and really look at you. I hope someone, anyone, was able to see your coming and standing there for what it really was: an act of bravery. You came and you said, “this is who I am. This is who I understand myself to be. Do you still love me?” I feel deep shame as I write that knowing it wasn’t me. But wallowing doesn’t help either of us. Guilt is only useful if it propels us to do better because we know better. So I promise to continue learning how to really look at people. I will put away from me, as a doctrine of the Pharisees, the practice of passing judgment on people as though they are nothing but a collection of choices for me to weigh in on.

Congratulations, M. I hope that, wherever you are, the recent ruling from the Supreme Court regarding gay marriage affords you some measure of peace and validation. And I hope and pray you’ve found people who can love you well and see you for the precious child of God that you are.

 

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This is The Work.

A number of years ago, a friend of mine was going through a bad breakup (turns out most breakups are bad in some way; people don’t usually break up if things are going well…but I digress). At the time, I was working for her out of her house. I showed up assuming we would work on some administrative tasks we had planned, but neither of us could really focus. So we watched Zoolander instead.

At one point in the movie, she turned to me and said, “You know, I get caught up in thinking I have to be doing work with people, or we are just wasting time.”

“I know that about you,” I replied. “That’s why I started working for you. I wanted to be friends.” See what I did there? I was as subtle back then as I am now.

“But R keeps trying to tell me that really being with people, right in their stuff, is the work. That it’s the important part.”

“He is right about that.”

“I needed to be watching Zoolander. This is The Work.”

~~~~~

Several ladies at the Jewish preschool daycare center where I worked shortly after moving to Cleveland used to tell me I was a “balaboosta.” I liked it then; I like it even more now. I’m growing into it as a major part of my identity. For those of you like me who don’t speak yiddish, a balaboosta is a woman who makes her home and her life a safe and welcoming space for those around her. In prefeminist terms, it meant a sort of super-housewife, who can pull off dinner for 20 at the drop of a hat without mussing her pearls or starched apron. Believe me when I tell you this is not me (well, maybe the dinner part). But underneath the pearls and the endless laundry and vacuuming is the idea that really being with people and creating space for them to really be with each other is The Work.

One of my favorite things about being married to J is that he really, really gets this about me. He understands that my plan to bring dinner to a friend in the hospital is not ancillary to my day; it is a small outpouring of me doing what I feel in my bones that I’m on the planet to do.

I doubt I’ll make much of a career out of it. I have yet to find a university that offers a master’s degree in having a friend over for coffee, or in watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer because that is the best way to be present with someone in a particular moment (doing The Work is not always about talking). Sometimes I think it sounds silly to describe such simple gestures as my calling in life. But I think when it sounds silly to me, it’s really because I am underestimating the usefulness and value of meaningful emotional connection.

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Míliath: on Kindness and the People Nearest to Us

I’m tired of reading children’s books that endorse that idea that brothers and sisters being awful to each other all the time is just a fact of life.

I’m realistic enough to be clear that they need to learn to work things out with one another, and that the friction between siblings is a useful and important part of the process. But within that reality, I think I can help my children to learn to disagree (discuss, argue, and yes, fight…) well. It’s tricky, but I think it’s possible. In fact, I think the skill of working out differences graciously is one of the most important relational tools I can give them.

Family relationships ought to be a safe space for children and grown-ups to be other than their best, to have their big feelings, and to feel accepted for who they are. However, I think this is often conflated with a somewhat lazy approach to relationships “I can be a jerk to them, they have to love me anway.” There is some basis for this belief. That doesn’t mean it’s the only way to do things. I also don’t like the implied, “so I don’t even have to try to be kind,” that too naturally follows on that train of thinking.

What if our daily family life together can be the very setting for us to practice all the virtues we read about or hear about? Peace, love, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control….keeping these abstracted away as ideas reserved for “out in the world” makes them much more likely to be practiced only occasionally. But what if our close relationships are the exact places we should be using as a safe space to practice being good to other people? What if my children are, in fact, capable of receiving and growing kindness within them, if I can just sow it carefully?

We are not perfect people. Weeds like selfishness, angry shouting, and other unkindnesses are a fact of life. That doesn’t mean they should be ignored. That’s how you end up with a garden choked with weeds.

With that in view, we are studying kindness this week. We’re making trips to the library to learn about it. We’re studying what wise people have said about it. We’re defining what it means to us personally, and how we can recognize and practice it in our lives. As an attempt to highlight kind actions when we recognize them, we are exclaiming “míliath!” whenever we witness a kind action. Míliath means “kindnesses” (in Sindarin, because why not?).

What has worked to help you to promote kindness within your home or important relationships?

GM courtesy brown

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“We Can Do Hard Things.”

My daughter was nearly bald until she was two.

See?

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With “Geen-dad”. She called this her “Tute Face”.

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Look at those sleeping babies! Elizabeth is, uh, the one in the back in case you can’t tell…she and Rebecca took several naps in this beast of a stroller that I picked up at a rummage sale.

Beginnings of a curl...

Beginnings of a curl…

She’s never had more than an inch and a half cut off of her hair before. It has taken us a long time to get to this point (if you’ll  allow me this gratuitous number of long-hair photos):

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angst

Don’t worry, honey, you have a few years to practice teen angst before you’re graded on it…

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With Avery, our back yard neighbor and another St. Baldrick’s participant.

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Matching hair with Josefina.

Her hair goes almost to her waist when it’s down, and for a while now she has loved having long hair. My own little Rapunzel (without me as the witch, she assures me). She said repeatedly that she wanted to grow it as long as possible, and I said she could obviously because it’s her hair and she can do as she likes. The only caveat was that brushing and washing it shouldn’t be a huge dramatic battle. We’ve mostly kept to that. Ahem.

Some friends of ours, Ruth, Everett, Avery, Sean, and Seamus are shaving their heads or donating their long hair on March 15th to raise money for children’s cancer research. They are doing it in memory of their friend Rebecca who died last June due to anaplastic astrocytoma (a type of brain cancer) While they are not on the same team as far as St. Baldrick’s is concerned, these kids have been playing together since before they knew what playing was. At this event they will join together to raise money to stop the thing that killed their friend. I am honored to be in the presence of such bravery and solidarity in our children.

A few months ago Elizabeth asked if she could take all the money in her piggy bank and give it to doctors so they could figure out how to help people better. I think it was about twenty three dollars and eighty-five cents. When it was first mentioned that she could cut off her hair to raise money she replied immediately, emphatic and wide-eyed. “NO!” I figured she loved her long hair so I dropped it. Then she said she wanted to get her hair cut short. I explained that some of her friends would be doing a meaningful thing. After a lot of conversation she finally whispered with her head down, “I’m afraid of St. Baldrick’s.”

I pulled her into my lap and thanked her for sharing a hard thing with me (she read and approved this post before publishing, lest you think I’m breaking a confidence). As we continued to talk it through, I made sure she knew that whatever she decided would be ok with me, but that I didn’t want fear to be in charge of her and push her to make decisions. I continued to offer her information about what would happen at the event; who would be there, what they would do, who might cut her hair, etc. I admitted that to be honest, St. Baldrick’s scares me a bit too. These days large groups of people I don’t know (and sometimes even large groups of people I do know) make me nervous. But we can do hard things.

There are lots of ways to remember Rebecca without cutting one’s hair. When we are at a party with other families and there are two little girls playing picnic by our feet instead of three. When we get together for playdates that used to be evenly matched and instead it’s one big sister and two little brothers. After more than half a year it feels more accustomed but no more right. Sometimes I catch my friend’s eye in a group conversation and I think, I see you thinking about your girl, and I am too. Cutting hair and donating money are two of many possible ways to show solidarity; ways to say, “We went to a funeral and then we went home….but we are still nearby. We still care about you.”

Elizabeth has decided that she wants to donate her hair to help the doctors find “betr medicin”, as she typed it in her thank you emails. Because while people are working so hard and we have come so far, the best medicine we have right now is not nearly good enough.

Click here to support Elizabeth by donating to St. Baldrick’s

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Grandma

The nurse adjusted her pillow and said, “Your granddaughter’s here. Do you know Katie?”

She opened her eyes and looked at me. “Of course I do!” Faintly, but in her usual emphatic way.

The nurse nodded and left and we sat for a few seconds.

“You know that I love you.”

“I sure do, Grandma.”

“Good. I know the same thing, but about you.”

~~~~

There are a lot of stories I could tell about my Grandma. She was a firecracker of a lady. I never, ever, questioned whether or not I stood in her good graces. I never once worried that I’d inadvertently offended her and didn’t know. I can not begin to say how reassuring that is. I look earnestly for that quality in my friends, and seek to create a safe space for that dynamic in all my important relationships.

As our family prepares to gather and remember a long life well lived, here I’ll share a couple of the moments with her that were most formative or memorable for me.

Godspeed, beautiful lady. I miss you.

~~~~

During one of our visits to see her in Washington D.C., we had this conversation and it will probably remain my favorite memory of her.

“I appreciate that we have so many strong women in our family, you know?”

She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, I have a pretty strong personality, I think.”

“Yes! You certainly do.”

“I think I get a lot of that from you.”

My grandma looked flabbergasted. “WHAT? What are you talking about?”

“Well, because you….um, well….because you have..a strong…personality?”

“THAT is not true. I do NOT have a strong personality. No one has EVER said that to me before.”

“Oh! OK, Grandma. Sorry. My mistake.”

~~~~

My slightly younger cousin Jeff and I were small, and playing over at his house. He hit his head on something and there was a lot of blood, so we had to go to the hospital so he could get stitches. I, with that delicate sensitivity of soul which is not uncommon to the tender age of five or six, was more concerned that I had to stop playing with all their fun toys and go to a boring place. Jeff was, understandably, more concerned with the blood and pain coming from his face. As we prepared to go, I muttered (again with the sensitive), “OK, but do we have to listen to him scream?” (Jeff, if you read this; sorry about that! And I hope your head’s ok. I’m guessing it is, by now. You’ve seemed well each time I’ve seen you all these years since.)
My Grandma drew up to her full height, looked me square in the eye, and said, “KATIE. Be kind.”
Sometimes, when I realize I am being ungenerous in my interactions, I still hear the echo of that exhortation in my mind. I’ll try, Grandma. I love you.
~~~~
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Great Grandma Della
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Kind over Nice

It was freshman year, and time for our Thursday night Real Life meeting for Campus Crusade for Christ. The guys across the hall from my dorm room started gathering up people to head over in a big herd (when you’re a freshman in college and away from home for the first time it’s comforting to do things in herds).

“Is K coming?” said one of my fellow Crusaders.

“Uhh, I don’t know….Katie, why don’t you go knock on her door and see?”

I trotted off down the hall and knocked on K’s door, bible in hand and sure she was just running late. She’d come with us for the first few weeks of the year, after all.

*Knock, knock.* “Hi! Are you coming to Crusade tonight?”

Her face flashed with anger. “NO!” She said quite firmly and shut the door hard in my face.

 

I was sitting at the Oxley cafe a couple of days later for a sandwich when K came and sat down next to me.

“I’m sorry I slammed the door in your face. I just…can’t go there anymore.”

“Oh! Ok. Why not?”

“It’s just…the church is made up of people, and it’s not supposed to be perfect and cookie cutter and…” She explained herself for a while, and eventually realized I was completely lost.

“Look. Katie, you’re smart. You can figure out how to be what they want, and say what they want you to say. You can make them like you. The question is, do you want to?”

***

It took 14 years, but I think I am finally beginning to unpack what she meant.

At the time, it wasn’t true in the least. I had no idea how to make people like me. I didn’t feel like other people’s approval had anything at all to do with me.

The thing is, K’s correct. At this point, I can often figure out what people want me to do. And that is often useful to keep in mind. The problem that knowledge presents then is what to do about it. It goes a little like this: if someone is going to be offended by my choice to abstain from a particular food I can eat it, not eat it, or leave. If I choose not to eat it, I can explain why, or leave it alone and let them assume whatever they like about me (if they care to). If I explain why they can believe the best about me or not. People may like me or dislike me a little more in a given moment based on what I say. I didn’t used to know that but now I can even see it happening sometimes. My words have an effect.

It’s exhausting. What am I supposed to do with all this information?

 ~~~~~

From the Merriam Webster site:

Full Definition of KIND

1
chiefly dialect :  affectionate, loving

2

a :  of a sympathetic or helpful nature

b :  of a forbearing nature :  gentle

c :  arising from or characterized by sympathy or forbearance <a kind act>

 ~~~~~

At first glance, it would seem that kindness and tenacity are at odds with one another. It doesn’t immediately read as “sympathetic or helpful” to tell someone that they’re wrong about something, that you’re hurt by their actions, or that what they’re doing is harmful to themselves or others. I get that. Does that mean we should never do those things? I think not. I think it means we may do well to expand our definition of kindness. A small definition of kindness (which I’ll refer to from here on out as being nice) is the wide road to people pleasing and denying others feedback which can help them meaningfully learn about themselves and the world. Can it really be kindness to stand by and let someone we care for harm himself or others when we might be able to help him not to do it?  The more I think about it, the more being nice begins to look less like actual kindness.

Someone I trust recently told me that kindness is not something to strive for because kindness is about people pleasing rather than doing what is best for myself or others. I disagree. I think kindness goes far deeper than being nice and that those two things do not always or even usually look the same.

Kindness holds on tenaciously when niceness would let go. Kindness pushes through awkwardness, offense, and hurt. Sometimes, kindness draws boundaries or even steps away for a time when niceness would stay put just to keep the peace for the moment. Niceness may hide the truth to make people happy; kindness looks for the most gentle way to say what is true and necessary.

Being nice instead of kind is like trying to sing a harmony part without any melody to go with it. It might be ok sometimes, but mostly it’s not enough and it will definitely never be a whole song. To put a Sondheim quote on it, “Nice is different than good.” Or, to apply it here, nice is different than kind.

K was right. I’m smart. But figuring out how to be nice to everyone all the time is not a good use of my intelligence.

What am I supposed to do with all this information? Sometimes the answer, thank God, is nothing.

I can figure out how to get more people to like me by being less of who I am. The question is, do I want to?

The answer, I am relieved to find, is no.

kind over nice

 

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To the Parents of the Screaming Baby In the Restaurant

I recently took E out for sushi at a local restaurant. It was a Wednesday afternoon and we were seated near the bar. As we ordered her favorites and mine, shared some chamomile tea, and chatted like Big Girls, our conversation was occasionally punctuated with loud screams of delight from across the room. In the corner across the restaurant there was a couple with a yearling in a high chair who was clearly delighted about something and felt no need to control her volume as she shared her happiness. We watched them for a little bit, and noticed with each scream more people turned around to give them an angry stare. These people were not mollified in the least by the fact that the parents were, in fact, not pinching the baby in order to make her emit such screams, or even by the fact that they were really trying to shush her the best they could as they scrambled to finish their meal quickly.

After a brief talk with our server (who also had children and specifically also remembered what it was like to have young children) we sent them a secret cookie. She dropped it off at their table and said, “One of your fellow customers remembers what it was like to have a child this age and wanted to say ‘good job being out in the world.'” The angry restaurant patrons nearest them heard and quietly turned back to their own meals, and hopefully found that it didn’t actually prevent them from eating delicious Japanese food for someone else to have a baby in a restaurant. The couple was surprised and said thank you (I think-we were far away and trying hard not to give ourselves away) and then thanked her again on their way out the door five minutes later.

You know what? Parents whose children are behaving perfectly aren’t the ones who *need* to hear that they’re doing well. Don’t get me wrong…I love it when people like my kids. It makes my mama heart swell with pride and contentment. I work very hard with my children to set the culture of our family. We have expectations and try to set examples of kindness, politeness, generosity, honesty, and many other ways of being with each other. It’s an astonishing amount of work, and I don’t mind when people notice that.

You know what else is an astonishing amount of work?

Parenting a toddler who’s throwing a fit because the seam of their sock isn’t hitting their toe just right (not that they can articulate that that’s the problem). When they throw themselves on the ground and start kicking and screaming in the grocery store aisle, there’s some tiny part of me that just wants to do it too as if that would make them stop. In the movie Riding in Cars With Boys, Drew Barrymore has this scene where the baby’s been screaming for hours and she just falls apart. She sobs, “WHY WON’T YOU STOP CRYING?” If you’ve never considered your child with this air of desperation, you’re a better parent than me. Or, at least, this post isn’t about you.

If you have ever felt that way, particularly in public, I just want to say…hang in there and keep doing your best. Parenting littles is no joke and sometimes when it’s the hardest, people judge you the most harshly.

There are ways in which I try to absorb most of the impact of my kids’ public tantrums…I will not go home immediately from the library if my kids are losing it, but I also won’t make the librarians talk to them. I will be the one to deal with my children climbing all over the motorcycle chairs in the kids’ room at the hair salon, but I won’t make a stylist the big bad or insist that she risk her fingers trying to cut my child’s hair as he tries to climb the walls or shriek and run away (having stylishly coiffed children is really not that important to me; especially factoring in considerations of courtesy, safety, and fairness to the people who work in that industry, but that’s just me).

All that aside, those are decisions we didn’t make on the fly. When you’re in the thick of it, it’s nearly impossible to think clearly. It’s hard to come up with a plan that makes everyone happy when someone is screaming in your face, spittle and boogers flying every which way. It’s even harder when you can feel the angry stares from all around; unless you are a very secure person it may be tempting, just for a split second, to want to just run home and stay there. Maybe you should give up restaurants and libraries and really anywhere where people are until the kids are “ready”. When will that be? When they are five? Ten? Surely by college…?

We were one of those brazen couples that took our babies (and later, toddlers) to restaurants with us. And sometimes they even cried there! And we didn’t leave immediately! We learned early that there was a certain percentage of the population which is offended by the audacity shown by those who dare to have children in public. But we have this idea children can best learn how to be in public by, y’know, actually being in public.

So you…yes, you with the twelve month old screaming happy screams into her miso bowl at the sushi place at 5:30 p.m. on a Wednesday…good job. I remember how hard it was to get out with a kid that age, and I think you’re doing just fine. ❤

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Save This Record

I’ve been researching my ancestors. As a middle class white American person, it feels disingenuous to look at only the fun parts of my family history, so I’m struggling to get my mind around the other parts. I’ve been thinking about it a lot during this process. I was clear that there was going to be some stuff I might not be proud of, as well as some things I was very excited to learn. And there is a lot of exciting and interesting history I look forward to delving into. Still, it’s jarring to see census data from 1830 and 1840 with my four times great grandfather’s household, neatly sorted out by age bracket, male/female, and free/slave.

If you are one of those (almost definitely white) people who think that slavery was “a long time ago” and people should stop “whining” about institutionalized racism, white privilege, and other parts of this complicated issue, try doing some ancestor searching. Because realizing how few generations ago it was legal in this country to own another person is sobering; and some of us do not have the luxury of living as though it never happened.

Institutionalized racism does affect ALL of us negatively (whether we acknowledge it or not), though not all of us have an increased likelihood of going to jail or dying because of it.

1830 census

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Breastfeeding as Disgusting, But OK (or, On Letting Other People Keep Their Stuff)

We went to a family party with my husband’s family this weekend. It was a lot of fun. There were delicious pizzas on the grill, fun drinks, and most importantly, fun people.

I love that this big noisy Slovenian family I’ve married into gets together and has fun. And they pull other people in, too. One of J’s cousins married someone who has a beautiful firecracker of a Croatian mama. She’s fantastic. Her name is Vesna (because I think maybe if I tried to shorten it to an initial, even on the internet, she would know and maybe I’d hear about it). We talk about canning, about which local farms we go to to get the best blueberries, peppers, and apples. We talk about childbirth and momming and chemicals in our food. She’s so interesting.

This weekend, at the July 4th party, I got to have this conversation with Vesna:

V: I made this one. It has flour, organic sugar from Costco, eggs, and butter. It’s good!

K: I believe you! I think I’m going to try some, even though I don’t really eat butter.

V: Why you don’t eat butter? It’s good for you.

K: I agree, usually, but S has a milk protein allergy and he gets sick. He’s still nursing, so I have to avoid it too.

V: He’s still nursing? FROM YOUR BREASTS? That’s disgusting!

K: HA! Wait, aren’t you from Europe?

V: Yes! Over there they do it until like age seven! It’s disgusting!

K: Well, we really like it, and it’s really good for him. We all got the flu a few months ago and he didn’t get it. And every time we’re all puking he’s just fine. It’s awesome.

V: Oh….huh.

K: *shrug*

V: Well, does he eat any solid food?

K: Yes definitely! Breastfeeding a 3 year old is not like nursing a newborn. He only nurses about once every day or two.

V: Well, that’s ok then.

K: Cool, thanks. Hey! This IS delicious!

 

If I had chosen to think differently about what she was saying to me (in particular about how much of it actually belonged to me and should direct my actions), I might not have felt like that conversation went very well. More importantly, if I was reacting from a place of defensiveness, it likely would not have gone very well. But as it stands, I think it was kind of hilarious and I look forward to talking to her about it again at some future family gathering.