be funny, get to the point

or shut up

When my children joke with, tease and criticize me I’m grateful.

Much of the time I miss the fact that they’re joking. I miss their pleasure, joy and love. I feel the sting of how clearly they see me.

Once I’ve performed a cranial anusectomy¹ and I can see the combination of fear and hope in their eyes - fear that I might take offense and hope that I might laugh, I let their criticism in.

One such criticism?

I say the same things over and over again.

I explain the same stuff multiple times.

I like to tell people the same thing three or four different times in quite similar ways.

I’ll even keep them sitting in one space, speaking something I just said moments ago, explaining once again with the hopes that they will hear me.

Tiresome eh?

My poor kids.

I used to think it was rude when they interrupted with an ‘I get it Dad’.

Now I realize that this is an act of desperation and an indication of someone with an injury around being heard.

I apologize for such a long letter, I didn’t have the time to wri…