In List Format

(Pre-published because I will once again be away from the computer tomorrow.)

1. Frances has been calling everything "baby" lately. Her toys are all prefaced "baby"--there's "baby Max," and "baby Thomas," and "Baby Eloise" (of course), and so on. But it's not just the toys, no no. No. Now I, too, am a baby--Baby Mummy, to be precise.

"Baby Mummy, come back!" she says. "Baby Mummy hide one more time." This is my favourite nickname so far.

2. Many many updates have been made to Anni's site. We are expecting the link to the COTA account shortly (as in, today/Tuesday) at which point Beanie Baby and Annika's site will be updated, and I politely request that you go bananas with the link and put it everywhere. The one to Anni's site.

3. Poor Frances has pink eye, and will probably not be able to go to daycare tomorrow. This means that she will miss her Valentine's Danceathon. I am crushed. She won't care, but I was looking forward to watching the video of her bopping around, and thinking of her eating her special pizza party lunch. We will have to have our own danceathon instead on the weekend. That Frances's relatively mild infection stands in such stark and painful contrast to other people's problems makes me a very lucky woman--but still, I wish she could go to her dance party!

4. I am so touched by all the people who have been saying "thank you." Truly. And now I'm going to ask you to stop, because I am also feeling intensely self-conscious about the whole thing, which makes me feel weird, and then I end up thinking that it's not about me and I shouldn't be thinking about what I feel.

The thing is, I have this nasty habit of trying to save people. You know that person who you tell your troubles to, and they say, "Well you know what you should do, you should do x!" I am a million times worse, because I won't tell you what you should do--oh no. I'll go out and do it.

At least, I used to.

This is bad. I take other people's problems away from them. It's patronizing and weird. As a result, I never can quite tell when I am being a good friend and helping someone out when they need it (appropriate) vs. taking ownership of someone else's problem and fixing it for them (inappropriate). I mean, seriously; why do you think I'm in the environmental field? "No, no! Let me fix that!" And it's not at all about the person or situation, it's about me--I end up doing it so that I can think of myself as a good person. That's not a good motivation.

I am very happy to organize and brainstorm and all that good stuff, and so far I think I'm walking that fine line between appropriate helping and inappropriate rescuing, but the thank-yous are making me feel very weird because they're tripping that wire in my head that thinks it's about me and it's not about me. So can we put a moratorium on the thank-yous?

Thank you.

(Ha! See how you like it.)

(What do you mean, you like "thank you"? Weirdo.)

Posted by Andrea at February 14, 2006 8:49 AM under Beanie Baby Brags

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