I am typing this post on a keyboard without a functioning right shift key or an up arrow, thanks to Sami’s adventures in keyboard destruction. This will, according to my estimate, be the fourth mysterious keyboard replacement I request from Dell in the 2.5 years that I’ve had this computer.

This happened at about ten o’clock this morning, when my back was turned for a grand total of thirty seconds as I ran to get a diaper from upstairs. I must confess that I totally lost it. It was a very, very not-good mommy moment. I yelled loudly, repeatedly, and shrilly, and I made my son cry hysterically. Just before that, he had been very happy and excited about his powerful ability to destroy my keyboard. It dimly occurred to me that the neighbors could probably hear me wigging out through the open window, but that didn’t stop me from ranting on and on. Thankfully, I became aware of the grating sound of my own voice and was able to contain it before it got any more out of hand. When I have a meltdown of this sort, I always remember this quote from Momma Zen: “It’s not how often you lose it, it’s how quickly you find it again.”

I immediately apologized to Sami for my Mommy Dearest rage-a-thon. “Mommy didn’t mean to scare you. I was just very upset, and I will try to do better next time.” He seemed satisfied with that, especially after I promised him that we were going to go hear some great music and ride the carousel at Glen Echo Park.

After my inappropriate outburst, we went on to have a stellar day. Despite plans with several friends, it ended up being just the two of us hanging out at the Washington Folk Festival, and I was totally ok with that. It’s kind of cool to be able to focus all my attention on Sami and not to have to attempt to carry on adult conversations while also tending to his needs. Don’t get me wrong, I do that on a very regular basis, and am pretty decent at it, but there is something nice about having a break from that.

My whole aim in going to the Folk Festival was to introduce Sami to Bill Jenkins’ World of Music. Bill Jenkins is an absolutely extraordinary musician and all-around awesome person who I know from my activist days with the Washington Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Bill travels the world playing music and collecting a dizzying array of musical instruments to share with kids in the schools where he does workshops. At the workshop today, he handed out dozens of drums and other instruments to the kids, and invited them to come up on stage to jam. The highlight of the day was when Sami and I played Tibetan gongs on stage while a near-emergency status torrential downpour fell all around us outside the tent. It was totally magical.

After all the excitement of the day, I just did not feel like cooking dinner. So Sami and I tried this evil restaurant for the first time. It wasn’t bad, considering we both ate for $7.50 and it wasn’t the Golden Arches. I was proud of myself for not being a total glutton and leaving the restaurant feeling satisfied and not stuffed — a major achievement considering how such setups have typically invited severe and regret-filled pig-outs from me in the past.

As we sat there, I could see Sami checking out the daddies in the restaurant. He looked at one particular olive-skinned man at a booth nearby and, pointing with a devilish smile on his face, asked, “this is daddy?”

“No, it’s not daddy,” I tried to say nonchalantly, glad that the man was oblivious to our exchange.

We played the game a few more times, with him pointing to different men in the restaurant, and me nonchalantly denying that they were daddy.

He pointed at me. “Mama!”

Then he pointed at himself. “Sami!”

“Mama and Sami,” he declared proudly, with a red pizza sauce moustache on his face.

“Yes,” I agreed. “Mama and Sami.”

That’s who we are. We are blessed to be surrounded by friends and loved ones, but in the final analysis, we’re a duo. And a pretty kick-ass one at that, if I do say so myself.