The Best of Intentions Sometimes Lead to the Worst Situations

 Hey friends. I'm going to cut right to the issue. I screwed up. I mean, I do that often enough it shouldn't be noteworthy but this one is stuck deep in my mom guilt so I'm going to put words to it and try to figure this thing out with all of you. 

See, my oldest son just graduated from high school and is on his way to college in the fall. I am so impressed with him. I am so proud of his accomplishments and the strides he's made as a person. And that made me want to change the narrative of our life to the other kids that are living in the house. 

It started innocently enough. The girls were complaining that school was starting again too soon. I said, "Well, your biggest brother is starting college in the fall so I bet he's nervous about school starting too." 

The tears ya'll. I thought that perhaps framing big brother living elsewhere in a normal transition type of way would help. What actually happened was I made the girls deeply sad that now they wouldn't ever see him again. That is far from the truth but their little minds tend to see things in an all-or-nothing light.

 I should have known better. Of course, I should have. I wanted to distract them from their own worry and instead transferred it to something else. As if that has ever worked for these lightning-quick mercurial girls. The only way we switch topics is if they decide they are going to. If I try to change topics sometimes they'll let me but then circle back around when I'm least expecting it. History tells me this. I will never learn.

So now I had three little girls crying and lamenting their big brother was never going to see them again. And until they actually see or hear from him again they'll assume I'm lying. 

As to other intentions paving the way to the proverbial heck, I decided to let my girls have fun with all my art supplies. I forgot I had oil paints in the bin of paints I have. Just flat-out forgot. And because I buy cheap Walmart brand paints most of the time the watercolor, acrylic, and oil paint tubes look exactly the same. The only way you can tell which is by reading the tube, which is historically something exactly zero people in my family do. Self-included for an unfortunate amount of the time. You can see where this is going. 

One of the girls asked if she could paint. I said sure, just clean up when you're done. Dear readers, she did not, could not clean up her mess. Because oil paints require a solvent. So, in addition to oil paint being on most of the table in smears, I need new paintbrushes because I never explained the difference to her between watercolor and oil paintbrushes. And I didn't even find the brushes before they were basically destroyed. 

So we had a chat about the types of paint, how to use them, and also how to clean them up. Which was a good thing but too little too late for about a third of my art supplies. C'est la vie. 

Summer is dragging on for me. It is the season in Texas where the thought of going outside gets me overheated. The girls are worse. They are all hypersensitive to temperature change so this time of year especially is hard on them. 

I am busy trying to write 2 new books and get the first one published. If you know any literary agents, or publishers looking for a young adult fantasy novel let them know I'm their gal. 

All for now. Love you guys.