The cold that mostly stayed in my head to give me day-long migraines, a constant runny nose, and that overall fuzzy effect is now trying to move into my chest. My voice is as low as that of James Earl Jones and infused with the husky rasp of a gin-soaked barfly. Liam has recovered; Ewan is on the mend. I have no patience and whenever I glare you can hear an eagle screech.
J.J. moved away without incident. He called Liam the week before
last and they talked for a while. J.J.'s dad called me from Florida
last week to say that the column about the boys almost made him cry and I was all WELL THEN MOVE BACK.
Liam has stopped asking for J.J. on Sunday mornings but he still
mentions him a couple times a week. So far, we haven't had to actually
sit down with Liam and say "J.J. moved away," and Liam hasn't pressed
the issue. We may have gotten off soooo lucky. Wait, I just jinxed it,
didn't I? Some douche named Tom Wroth wrote to tell me that I sounded
"pathetic" and stated:
"Parents like you are why kids become
'dependent'. Or does a child's dependency provide you with some sort of
superficial sense of self-worth? I can't help but wonder how you'll
embrace your child's grief when something really serious does happen."
I thought it was well-known that the smaller hurdles in life are practice for the really big hurdles and that the delicate issue of a five-year-old's best friend moving away is serious to the five-year-olds involved, maybe not so much to insensitive men who are obviously sans children because WHAT A SWEET TALKER.
Next week's column is about public breastfeeding and the poo-storm caused by reactions to Baby Talk's magazine cover. I cannot wait to see my inbox Monday morning, though I hope many can contribute to the discussion.
