Well, the pup n I waited until this evening to go for a walk and we netted just 1.11M in 30 minutes of silence. You see, this was an early morning for the whole house. The kids had to be at school an hour earlier, the Mrs and I both had early meetings, so the house was unusually alive earlier than normal. Granted, it is the first week of school, and this will repeat every MWF, but today was the first. Couple that with the extra stress I put on myself for procrastinating on a project at work, well it led to a late lunch where I ate too much, then, at dinner, I was utterly not hungry, but it looked like I didn’t want to be with family or that I didn’t like the meal the Mrs had lovingly prepared. The meal was tasty and if I was not stuffed from lunch, I would have probably eaten too much at dinner. Even my getting up and emptying the dishwasher was perceived as a sign I did not want to be involved in the dinner conversation.
Actually, it was about 180 degrees from accuracy, but perception can overpower intent pretty easily. By the time I asked to go for a walk, I was in the doghouse, and as soon as we got out the door, the Mrs let me know how I had made her feel. Yup, for a mile, my tail was between my legs as the sorry I mustered landed pretty flat on the sidewalk.
The pup seemed to know something was amiss, as she was close to us and did not try to go off sniffing like she usually does at key spots along the way. Not until she really had to go did she stop, circle, and do her business.
So this post will be shorter than I had planned as my thoughts kinda escape me now as to what to write. Yup, you could say this is a check-the-box kinda of post, much the same as I think my attendance at dinner was perceived.
In the past, I might have tried to argue that dinner was fine, I just over ate lunch and felt like a balloon, but that thought came too late.
Lesson learned? Yeah, I should have let them know when I sat down at the table, I had a big, late lunch and was really not hungry but would taste the feast and offer feedback. This would have both set the tone that I probably was not going to eat much, give an understandable reason why, and would have brought me into the conversation so I could have learned more about the kiddos day. Maybe now that I thought it and written it, the next time it will resonate, and I will act earlier so I don’t have another post like this one. Time will tell.
Thanks for reading.
Mama’s friend