I had coffee with a colleague today that told me that her 20-year old son didn't pass his first year at college. He had enrolled in the 2-year prepa in Engineering, hoping to go to one of the grandes ecoles (the elite university system). He was in a class of 24 and they only accept 8 to continue into the 2nd year. How I felt for him! The stress and disappointment of failure. The sympathy and disappointment of the parents. "Now what?" they are all asking themselves.
As I was listening to my colleague lament and empathizing with both her and her son, I had two reactions. The first was that it made my problems of having to clean poop out of the bathtub* seem trivial. And the second was that I hope I'm prepared and can handle the kind of real parenting problems that are bound to come.
* Yes, it's true. Boo has had a little tummy upset and pooed diarrhea poo into his bath last night. So fun fun fun trying to clean and disinfect the tub and bath toys with slippery Boo getting into everything. Luckily once it was over Boo was all clean and snuggled in bed. I had a glass (or two) of rosé on the patio to recover.
Oh dear, we had to deal with the poop in the tub once, but hubby was home and got the clean up duty while I only had to put the baby to sleep (thank god for the excuse of nursing!).
Posted by: Jessica | July 15, 2008 at 05:43 PM