Day 8 of 210 no sweets
A Joke, a Riddle, and a Poem – day 8 of 210 no sweets
You might say that I’m writing my way out of eating sweets… Instead of munching, I’m punching… the keyboard.
A Joke
My children have all told me this clever joke. I must pass it along here. It’s clean and clever, and so appropriate for day 8 of 210 no sweets. Of course, kids hear a joke for the first time and figure mom or dad don’t know it. Sorry to my third child who with all the shiniest best of her first grade self asked me…
“Why is six afraid of seven?
And I forgot all parental protocol and answered…
“Because seven eight nine.”
Even though I knew the answer I could have pretended not to. I could have allowed her the pleasure. We could have both been happy then. And why did I follow with “You are my third child, you know,” with a wink that was all about me. We moms must forgive ourselves. Stop the mom guilt! (Please don’t get me wrong: all’s fair in… teens or adults to answer right off)
A Riddle
A little about my youngest daughter: she has baby status, yet first child status, and oldest child status. How can that be?
Ok, here’s the answer to the riddle: She is the third and last child of mine and the only child of her father’s and the other two are my children from a previous marriage and there are a dozen years between. I know, who wants to do all that math? I’m sure all of you got that riddle first off anyhow.
Now that I am an older and wiser mother, I can’t help but raise her differently. First, we are doing homeschool high school. And, she 11th grade has a year and a half to go. Second, until a month ago we were caregiving her father with advanced dementia at our home, and third, her brother and sister left home when she was about eight.
A Poem
Before I wrote this poem today I had looked up the word enthuse “to cause to become enthusiastic”. As I was thinking about that… is it possible to have contagious enthusiasm – an enthusiastic crowd, for example.
Then I was considering how I’ve maybe heard the term used more often in the negative as in “over-enthusiastic”.
And, what must happen to cause a person to be enthused in the first place is something within themselves if it is actual enthusiasm, because people can seem enthusiastic but it wanes with mood. I think we see it in American politics, but even more so in a basketball game.
Actual enthusiasm is a thing to hold on to but it is a really difficult thing to transfer, because what gets transferred is a feeling, a mood. And as I show in my poem, over-enthusiastic people can be killers of enthusiasm, really, though they don’t even know they are doing it. The worst possible dose of other people’s enthusiasm is if someone is enthusiastic FOR another to do something and keep reminding them of it and “encouraging” them. Anyhow, for me that’s the way it is…
…
ENTHUSED, MUCH?
…
Enthusiastic came, early, shining, ready
Attracting others needing extra
Feeding the fire, going steady
Hearts full, wills ready
…
But, over-enthusiastic burst right in
And as usual, over-doing,
Pushing, burning, maddening, stewing
Bites off more than it is chewing
…
And with this terrific tragedy
Of misplaced motivation,
Mood walks out
Depressed, Deflated
…
~Julie Robinson
