Mother Knows Best

Let me preface my story by saying that of course I don’t enjoy when my children–or any of my loved ones, for that matter–get hurt. I just want that to be clear because I don’t want my readers to get the impression that my smug satisfaction with the events I am about to retell have anything to do with my child’s pain and suffering. Now, on with the story.

I came home last night after teaching my spin class and went into the kitchen after passing through the family room and saying hello to J, who was sitting in the chair watching television. Jim was in the kitchen, and in the course of our conversation, Jim mentioned that J was a little annoyed because something happened at work.

“What???” I said. “I saw him after he got home from work; he came home before I left for class and he was fine. He didn’t say anything about work, and I even asked him about his day.”

Jim replied, “He dropped something on his foot, and because he was wearing flip-flops it put a nice-sized cut in his toe.”

I said, “Hmm. He didn’t tell me that!”

And then I realized why.
I called J up to the kitchen.

“Hey J, you didn’t tell me about what happened at work. Why not?”

He said, “I don’t know; I guess I just wasn’t thinking about it.”

I said, “Would it have anything to do with the fact that just a couple of days ago we had a conversation in which I told you that open-toed shoes were not appropriate footwear for a warehouse, and you told me that ‘lots of my co-workers wear open-toed shoes’ and ‘we don’t ever drop anything heavy enough to get hurt anyway’?”

He said, “Uh…maybe.”

We had a good laugh about that. Or maybe it was just me. As my sister said over dinner, sometimes those teachable moments just fall right into your lap.

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