Mom is tucked in, and probably a little ticked off at me, and Napi and I are winding down from an impromptu photo shoot. We'll probably redo most of the photos and put a few up some time after the 'nut is born. But for tonight it appears he's staying put. No contractions since early this afternoon, and no sudden gush of fluid from the spigot. Nope, not tonight friends - at least not unless the boy suddenly decides that O dark Thirty is the magic hour...
Why is my mom ticked off at me? We have a strange relationship my mother and I. We don't talk to each other much, and you only have to be around us for a few minutes to realize just how awkward we are around each other. We've never been very close, despite the fact that I'm only child. Testament to that is the fact that this is the first time my mother has visited me since I graduated law school in May 2001. (That being said, I've seen her a number of times since then in Jamaica.) I have my theories about why our relationship is the way it is and I won't get into them here, but nevertheless we love each other and I know there isn't much my mother wouldn't do for me, and there's not much I wouldn't do for my mother. My mother comes from a culture where certain things are supposed to be a certain way. Going to church? You dress a certain way. Own a house? Certain rooms should have certain things in them. One of those rooms is the bathroom. You should have the requisite three rug set in your bathroom and that's just the way it is. Napi and I have a half bathroom that Napi painted a beautiful white with green squares. That room does not have the three rug set, and in fact none of our rooms do (although both bathrooms upstairs have individual rugs). In our minds it just wouldn't look right, and besides, you can count the number of times on one hand that a guest has ever been in that half-bathroom. Imagine our surprise then, when my mother decided to make that decision for us and purchase a very brown set of rugs for the bathroom. Make no mistake - this wasn't an attempt on my mom's part to level her design philosophies on how our apartment should be decorated. Napi took it that way and I know that's not the case. In my mom's mind, a bathroom has the rugs and the fact that this room doesn't have a set means that we must have just forgotten to get one, or perhaps we ran out of money or something. Never mind that Napi and I probably make double what my mother makes including the crazy number of hours of overtime she puts in each week.
Napi was a little ticked off about the whole thing, and there was no doubt the rugs had to go. But this is where I erred. Normally I am a master of picking my fights - a trick I know for a fact Napi hasn't mastered. Some things you just let go until such time as you can correct them. Lose the battle, win the war, that's the mantra. Now what I should have done was just left it alone. We don't like the rugs - no problem. Mom leaves on Tuesday, they come out Tuesday night. Just that simple. She meant well - no need to hurt her feelings or appear unappreciative. But instead what I ended up doing was asking her why she had purchased brown rugs for a room that's white and green. "Well are you going to be living here forever?" she replied. "No, but we wouldn't have put brown rugs in the room or even put rugs in there at all." That was the critical mistake. After mumbling that if we didn't want them she could always use them, my mom fell quiet. Napi and I went to get ice-cream and when we returned my mom had retired for the night (unusually early for her) and the rugs had disappeared from the bathroom. I feel terrible about the whole thing and I deserve to feel that way. Some fights you just walk away from and I had every opportunity to do that here; I even encouraged Napi to do the same. Some son I am, huh?
Watch Him Grow!
