That’s how cool we are, according to our neighbor’s grand-daughter, Maya.

Maya, 6 years old, going on 16, comes over a couple times each week to play with my daughters. Her parents are divorced and her father is battling for custody of her.  She spends a lot of time over our house.

Today she and I and my younger daughter, A, were sitting around the table having a snack and chatting about butterflies.  I told her about how we’d found a dead monarch butterfly, which she saw up in C’s room (it’s beautiful, and is in a little plastic container).  C maintains that she never opens the container because it stinks.

Maya: Does that butterfly really stink?

Me: C says so, but I wouldn’t know. When I find a dead butterfly, I don’t go up to it to smell it.  I just look at it, and put it in a container because it was beautiful, but you won’t see me going around sniffing it.

Maya (cracking up): People would think you were crazy if you did that!

Me: Well, actually I am a little crazy.

Maya: Well… just a teeny tiny bit. (gesturing with her thumb and pointer in a tight pinch)… But you’re cool.  Y’all are all cool.  You’re cool from Africa to China and back, 800 thousand times. That’s how cool y’all are. 80 hundred thousand percent COOL.

That’s just what I needed to hear. Earlier today I’d been feeling like a total slacker. I was really tired and fell asleep on my elder daughter’s new loft bed.  It’s really cozy up there. Then I realized at some point that it was already 2 PM and I hadn’t prepared any lunch.  When I’d been hungry myself, rather than take that as a cue to get lunch together, I munched some tortilla chips. Looking back on that, at 2 PM, I really felt like a lame mom.  I mean, really, #1 job responsibility is feeding the kids, isn’t it?*

Meanwhile, on the “career” front, I’m excited to report that I had a Job Interview for the first time in a long while, and have a 1 in 3 shot at getting a really challenging, fun, rewarding job working with kids in an after school program.  And back to reality, the job I currently have, that of running a web hosting and design business is on hold but the clients don’t really know that. I have to return some phones calls and I’ve been putting it off because I am not really sure what I want to say.

I want to have some kind of plan about what to say, because I fear I’ll just act on gut impulse if I don’t plan it ahead. They wants answers not more hedging.  I’ve been putting off these people for long enough.  Sure, I’ll have two weeks of child care in a couple weeks, but is that enough to work on the projects?  And what if I get the JOB I just interviewed for?  I feel like I just can’t commit to the work, even though turning down two grand is kind of hard to swallow.

Think. Think. Think.

Well…. At least I’m cool.

* These days, I’m struck with the irony of how hard people say it is to breastfeed… I found that pretty easy. But preparing meals that are nutritious and delicious, 3 a day, for the whole family, especially when each person’s tastes vary… that really takes a lot more effort than rolling over and pulling the hungry little mouth to my breast.

On top of the effort it takes to feed ‘em all properly, I don’t think there is any consensus on what the Right food for us to eat is, whereas, when my lil ones were babes, I was told repeated that I was providing the Perfect food. Wow, perfect. Yeah, and it was free and pretty easy too. And I could do it in my sleep. )