I love the internet in general and the blogosphere in particular for many reasons - not the least of which is that I often I stumble across parenting and life truisms that make me go, ‘oh yea, she gets it’.

We’ve been struggling with Bella lately. Since we returned from Canada she’s been seriously out of control and Sam and I have been at our wits end. Pretty obvious where it comes from (um, home remodel, upcoming move, starting kindergarten, big trip away from her father for five weeks, etc; just a few stresses in our lives). Not so obvious how to fix it.

We’ve been wondering how we went so wrong with this parenting thing, why the universe gives kids to people like us who are so obviously not up to the task of raising a productive member of society. Still, every now and then she’ll do something so lovely and sweet that my heart contracts with the depth of my love for her and I feel guilty about how many times I’ve thought about dropping her off at the mall and leaving her there.

Then today I read this passage at Dooce, and I had to laugh out loud.

“You think you’re going to be prepared for the sheer incredibleness of such a moment, but it’s like, someone keeps setting off pipe bombs on your front porch and throwing rocks through your windows, and then one day out of nowhere they show up and mow your lawn. And you’re suddenly glad you didn’t shoot them last week.”

That could not be more exactly, perfectly, dead on how I’ve been feeling. Of course, right now Bella follows up the lawn mowing by tossing yet another pipe bomb through the living room window…but whatever. We’re working on it.

Oh yea. What she said.