I had a much shorter fuse back when Ian was deployed. The stress of the situation and all the responsibility for our children would drive me to yell too much. There were times I really needed the kids to step up and do more so that everything wasn't all completely on me every minute. But they were small. It seemed like such bright little people should be able to follow certain instructions, but often they just couldn't, and in my heart I knew that.
Still, there were days when I felt they were letting me down and they would get a loud lecture. The one I remember best was the lecture about Responsibility. They had responsibilities as members of our family! As residents of our house! They could not make extra work for me by dumping their dirty clothes all over! If they wanted to have toys they had to pick them up when they were done! There were rules! They had to be more responsible!
And my beautiful, sweet children looked up at me, patiently listening to my ranting and raving as I flailed my arms around and talked about responsibility. They looked sad and concerned and nodded in earnest agreement as I went on. And when I finished Aden asked carefully, "Mama? Um.... What does re-spon-si-bi-li-ty mean?"
We went, as we do every year, to the parade in our nearby park. Some things about it are always the same: Politicians throwing candy, antique cars blowing funny horns, the lazy band on the flatbed truck, Polish dancers, accordion players, baton twirlers, Elvis.... Missing this year were the racing sausages, and there seemed to be fewer dogs.
