Bipolar

Every day -- every SINGLE day, mind you -- I hear something like "you are a mean old mommy." The reasons range from the perfectly reasonable (I won't let Kid wear the yellow shirt with the green pants because I have strange associations with squished caterpillars) to the unjust (there's no way in the world that one small bum requires 40 Kandoos at a time). Sometimes it's just a matter of whim; yesterday, it was okay to paint on the bathroom floor because mommy was mad at daddy, but today it is completely not okay to paint on the bathroom floor because who on earth paints on a bathroom floor, honest to GOD, you'd think you were raised by heathen goats in Turkmenistan.

But every night -- every SINGLE night -- I hear this, from a small sleepy mouth, glissading over minty toothpaste and the smell of soap: "Mommy, you're the best person in the world. I love you."

And if he only knew it, at that moment I would let Kid paint every bathroom floor in the world in (almost) any medium he wanted to do it in.