No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Today was an uneventful day, which was a good thing. My big excitement for the day was having lunch with my parents. Pleasant conversation and tasty ham and cheese panini, who could ask for more?

Unfortunately, I blew an opportunity to do one thing after lunch. When my parents dropped me off at home after lunch, they came into the house. My dogs always get excited when grandpa comes to visit because he usually takes them for a walk. So far, so good. The downside of such a thing is that my parents have a tendency to linger just a bit too long. While I had a good free lunch, I was ready for the outing to be over and get something accomplished in the remainder of the afternoon. However, with them being there I began to feel that they were overstaying their welcome. It is a bit of a conflict wanting to tell someone to leave when they had just done something nice for you. I suppose I could have been a gracious host and talked with them for a while, but instead I got a little passive-aggressive, hoping that they would get the hint. I could have handled things better.

On the upside, I had better results with my son. He was on the computer on some frivolous website. Every few minutes he kept calling me over to take a look at something that he felt was funny or interesting. To my adult eyes, it wasn't particularly funny or interesting and because of the frequent interruption, I was getting irritated. Fortunately, unlike my parents, I handled it better. I stifled my irritation because I knew that he was trying to share a part of himself with me and it was important for him to feel that connection. I feel pretty good that I didn't react poorly there.