Feb 23
“Wear ‘em and tear ‘em and buy some more…”
My grandmother would sing this diddy whenever I got new shoes but my mom didn’t want me to run outside in them.
Has anyone noticed how mothers mellow when they become grandmothers?
It seems this more laid-back approach recycles in our family once grandkids are born. When my daughter was little, my mother enjoyed taking her for weekends. Inevitably she would call me a couple hours before I was supposed to pick up Marissa. Take her to the doctor, she’d say. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She has a stomach ache. Of course, there was nothing wrong with Marissa. Her stomach ache was the result of happy meals, candy and four trips to the ice cream shop.
Recently I was sifting through storage boxes. While opening one labeled, ‘dolls’, I stumbled across “Baby June”. Immediately, I felt a flashback from 1989. Marissa was four; she had pink sponge curlers dangling from her hair. I was frying bacon when her cute little voice peeped, “Mommmmy! Where’s Baby June?”
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Feb 17
Mom? Can you give me “the talk” when it’s time rather than dad?
I do not want dad to tell me… it’s just bad aroma.
Kyle age 11
It stinks that Ken cannot be taken seriously. Then again, it stinks that he can. Especially when he is trying to be my knight and shining armor — and I have to play Penelope Pitstop.
Enter the Davis kitchen… Three years ago. Ken and I had just gotten home from a doctor’s appointment. I had been short of breath. My symptoms were teri-cloth. I could not walk across the house carrying an armful of towels. It turns out I was slightly anemic — needed to eat more spinach. My family was delighted. They surrounded my ankles with laundry baskets.
Back to my pre-eat-more-greens diagnosis… Ken has run to the pharmacy and purchased a blood pressure monitor. My hero is practicing on himself. Sitting on a chair – bare chest, hip to hip beside the dishwasher. As seriously as I can, I ask him why his shirt is lying on top of the microwave oven.
“Why are you sitting next to the dishwasher?”
“Because” he waves one arm, valiantly, “I am trying to figure out how to use this stupid blood pressure monitor, so I can show you what to do. So far, all I have done is taken my blood pressure three times and given myself a heart attack.”
I cannot laugh, I cannot laugh…I repeat this at least 6 or 50 times.
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Feb 02
“For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart.”
Judy Garland
Many of my blog articles poke fun at my motherly mishaps. But this one is a real heart string tugger. This reflection, from about four years ago, remains one of the greatest parental lessons I have ever learned. Probably because it taught me two things. One of those being that children are amazing teachers.
“DON’T LEAVE ME…..” That’s what my son was whispering. I can still hear his younger voice saying those three words as I was trying to stand. He was 10-years old at the time. His little head was lying softly on my neck; his fingers twisting my hair, “pulging” he calls it.
“I am not leaving you, Kyle.”
“Yes you are.” He pressed his nose against mine.
“No I am not….” I am just going to the kitchen.” Kyle pulled my head back to his nose, then whispered into my eye.
“That’s leaving me…. same thing.” Read the rest of this entry »
