Communicating

One of the things that I feel badly about, on occasion, is when I can communicate better with my daughter than can my wife.

Last night, for example, my daughter went to a party at a friend's house, and received a thanks-for-coming gift. (The mother told me that my daughter had been the 'life of the party', and I replied, sternly, that we'd 'have to talk about that', which they thought was funny.) On the way home, she looked at it, and repeated several times that it was 'freaking awesome'. When we got home, she scurried for her room. My wife asked what she'd gotten, and my daughter said, in quick passing, 'nothing'. I told her, quietly, what she'd said in the car.

Now, I don't read a lot into this. I've noticed that ther are some things that she's more likely to talk to my wife about than me, and some, frankly, that I'm glad she's more willing to talk to her about than me. And I admit that there might be just the faintest bit of smugness when she's more willing to talk to me about something. But when it's something trivial, like that, I feel just a little badly for my wife, who's just trying to show interest and support for the daughteroid's life, and getting blown off for the effort. I don't think it's fair, and it's why I try to involve her when I'm the participant and she's not.

Freakin' awesome.