Thoughts on Mother’s Day

On the second Sunday of May each month we, as a nation, stop and pay homage to the mother or mothers in our life. It’s a great idea and like so many great ideas, it leaves itself wide open for guilt ridden humor and irony. Let me explain.


As I child, I loved Mother’s Day. It was the one Sunday that we didn’t have to have a bible lesson in Sunday School but instead got to work on our homemade Mother’s Day cards. A piece of colored construction paper and a few crayons and poof, we had the perfect gift. These childish efforts brought tears to my mother’s eyes, something I rarely saw unless my brothers had been really really bad.

And then I became the mother… and things changed.

Mother’s Day is the one morning of the year when my children are allowed to run rampant in the kitchen and I have to stay tucked in bed listening to the sound of broken glass and pots being banged together, while that strangely eerie scent of burnt eggs wafts gently in the air.

Just as tradition dictates that the groom is not allowed to see the bride on their wedding day before the ceremony, so I am not allowed out of my room until the traditional ‘breakfast in bed’ sequence is complete. Though, truth be told, it’s probably good for me to get the extra rest, as I will need it when I am finally allowed out of my room and back into the shambles that was once a clean kitchen.

After the hour and a half it takes to clean up breakfast, we usually attend church together as a family. It’s quite an accomplishment to get everyone out of bed, showered and dressed in time to attend services, especially for the one who is determined that God will strike him with a lightening bold if he so much as steps through the doorway. But after many tears and pleading on my part, and guilt trips on the part of their father, I manage to get my whole brood sitting somewhat quietly together on a church pew.

As other mother’s arrive at church one notices immediately that many are sporting brightly colored Mother’s Day corsages. By far the most popular model is the single orchid, boxed and sold by the thousands at most retail outlets the Saturday before Mother’s Day. These are the ones that come with two huge white headed pins, guaranteed to draw blood, and a small vial of water attached to the flower stem.

There is some debate as to what that small vial is for. When removed, the stem seem to go wild, often tangling itself up in the ribbon or just sticking out in some annoying angle. On the other hand, if you leave the vial on, you are guaranteed to find water leaking onto the chest portion of your Mother’s Day outfit. Though this may bring back memories of your first over engorged Mother’s Day, it isn’t really a pretty sight.

Among the myriad of single orchids are some double variety. They cost a little more, but they make you husband feel special when he gives them to you and in effect says, “You my dear are a two orchids wife!”

A few women show up with corsages of flowers other than orchids, the type that you order from a florist in advance. I tried to order myself a corsage of baby roses once and claim that it was a gift from my three year old, but I couldn’t do it. It felt like purchasing your own Christmas gift, then placing it under the tree and saying it was from some made up friend.

In our church, various members of the congregation are invited to stand and share memories of their own mothers. This is by far the most difficult part of the day. Last year, eighty-five year old Roy Mossbrow rambled on for thirty minutes about his sainted mother who passed away nearly forty years before, while all the mothers in the audience, including myself, cringed at his description.

“Never do I recall that woman raising her voice,” Roy drones on. “Or saying a sharp word.”

I look down the row to see all six of my children looking in my direction, eyebrows raised. I shrug. What can I say, I’m an awful mother.

“She was up before the dawn and often wasn’t in bed till midnight.”

I don’t get up that early, but often I watch Letterman till well after twelve a.m. Does that count?

“I am the man I am today because of that sweet angelic woman.”

I swear, if any of my children ever stand up and make all the living mothers feel guilty by embellishing my memory after I’m dead, I will come down and hit them over the head with my halo or pitch fork, depending on where I end up.

As we leave the chapel, the young men hand out carnations with yard long stems and I do my best not to beat myself up with mine. Being a mom is hard work, and the fact that my kids are involved makes it even tougher.

Then my teenage son slips his arm around me and whispers in my ear. “I love you mom.”

I guess having to suffer through one Mother’s Day a year isn’t too bad. I mean I do have pretty great kids. And besides, maybe someday, when they all grow up and move out, I can be perfect just like my mom.

My Mysterious and Romantic Life

To most outside observers, I may appear the typical stay at home mom. I cook, clean (when absolutely necessary), run my kids to and from basketball games and friends houses, and keep the family dog and cats fed. But unbeknownst to even my closest friends I’m actually living a double life as a secret agent.


I’m sure you’ve all seen the James Bond movies; well my life makes his look like an afternoon at the mall. You want to talk about suspense, top secret information, mysterious happenings and romance on a daily basis, then my friends, you have come to the right place.

My world is full of suspense. Let’s me tell you what happened just yesterday. I decided to bake some homemade whole wheat bread. I followed the instructions, allowed the dough to rise in the pan and then turned on the oven. After the allotted time, I peeked in and found that the bread was golden on the top and looked ready to come out.

I carefully removed the first loaf from the oven, slid a knife around the outside and turned the pan upside down. For about ten seconds it looked absolutely perfect. Then it happened. The bread began to slowly implode along a center crack caving in like an asphalt road during an earth quake. Quickly, I transferred the mangled mess back into the pan and returned it to the oven for another twenty minutes. Later my daughter stated that the loaf tasted good but looked demented.

Now who would have guessed THAT was going to happen?

As a secret agent I am entrusted with many bits of top secret information only to be released on a ‘Need to Know’ basis. Like, why my fourteen year old daughter no longer likes N but thinks that A is really cute. And that her best friend T has a crush on L, M, J and F. I would tell you what name each of these letters represent, but then I would be forced to kill you….

Also I am sworn to secrecy about that unfortunate tuna sandwich incident at school, what my husband really thinks about that guy down the hall with the obnoxious laugh, and who is responsible for the new dent in the back rear fender of the BMW. (that would be me.)

I spend my days solving mysteries that would stump a detective of lesser valor. Like, why is a set of speakers sitting in the hall plugged into an outlet but not attached to any music producing device? Or how come the pens in my room keep disappearing no matter how often I buy new ones?

How about this. Our black lab is sitting at my side, staring up at me and whining. Is she trying to tell me A) one of the kids has fallen down the well, B) our house is being invaded by a swarm of killer cats or C) she wants to go outside but no one will open the door? It could be any one of the three and that’s the challenge.

Perhaps my favorite part of being a secret agent is the romance that comes with it. I am adored and get kissed or hugged by at least four handsome men every single day, and sometimes more. I get called sweetheart, honey and beautiful constantly and I get to wear skimpy sexy clothing… ok, well what I mean is that I gained a little weight and my clothes are all too tight and revealing now, but hey I can see it how I want.

Yes, between trying to deduct what to make for dinner, interrogate a teenager about her evening plans, make sure the new box of cookies doesn’t fall into enemy hands and spy on my son and his new girlfriend in the family room, I have a pretty exciting life. But just remember… it’s a secret - shhh - so don’t tell anyone.

Relationships Are Difficult or Why I’m So Hard To Live With

The subject of marriage came up the other day while I was talking with some women friends of mine. Marriage often comes up in such conversations followed by children’s exploits and of course Oprah. The consensus was that creating a successful marriage was not nearly as easy as the romance novels lead us to believe. It takes committed long term work.


Try putting any two people together for an extended period of time and no matter how good of friends they were to begin with or how compatible they seem to be, problems will occur. It happens. Someone gets hurt, or misunderstood and someone else gets tired or down and bang… you have a blow up.

And it’s not just other people. I get frustrated or angry with myself all the time, so you can imagine how hard it is for my poor husband to put up with me. Now I’m not saying that I kill animals or have gambling issues with the local 7elevan mobsters. But I will admit to having a few eccentricities that occasionally get on my sweethearts nerves.

I hate to clean house. I’ll admit it right here, I really do. I would almost rather do anything than clean house. Now don’t misunderstand me, I do clean… I just do it as little as possible. For instance we have a bathroom that seems to get dirty faster than any other room in the house. When company comes over, we lock the door from the inside so if someone tries to use it, they will think it’s already occupied. I had a friend comment to me the other day that she was really anxious to see the inside of that room. “It must be amazing because every time I come over it’s in use.” … Oh yeah it’s really amazing.

My husband is a very sociable person and I’m kind of a loner. He’s a successful salesman and I love sitting alone with my computer writing creative prose. When we go out, he likes to mix and mingle while I prefer to lurk and leave. From the moment we walk into a party, I’m watching the clock, trying to figure how long I have before I can gracefully slip out unnoticed.

I love chick flicks… the more sappy romance the better and my hubby goes with me, even if he would prefer an action adventure or a historical drama more.

I’m what I call a crap shoot cook (using the gambling definition not the potty definition). I can make the exact same meal, following the exact same recipe and the exact same ingredients twice and never get the same outcome. One meal is perfection and everyone loves it, the next, it flops miserably. I like to think that it adds a sense of adventure to my husband’s life.

Another reason I’m so hard to live with is that I hate to be wrong. I’ll argue for hours that Thomas Jefferson was the first US president rather than admit I made a mistake. “I didn’t actually say he was the first real president,” I say with conviction, “I said he was the first US president to have a name that sounds like two last names.” I did mention my inventive imagination right? Anything to avoid being in error.

I like to stay up late in bed and read, I’ve been known to eat the last piece of cake without offering to share, and I sometimes “accidentally” delete a prescheduled recording on the television to watch something I’m more interested in.

But despite all these idiosyncrasies and quirk’s my husband is still with me. I hope that it’s because of my many redeeming qualities, and not because it would be too much trouble to start over with a different model. But I guess that’s what makes our marriage so good. It’s a relationship in progress and as we work it out togetherour love grows and our hearts unify.

It All Comes Out in the Wash

 

I know better than to go to the grocery store between four and six on a week day afternoon, because that's when everyone else goes. The food aisles are clogged with carts, shoppers and oblivious small children running in every direction. Turning left from canned goods into the meat and deli aisle is an act of courage. More than once I’ve nearly crashed into another cart. Those darn Fruit Loops end units make visibility impossible.

Even worse than trying to move about the store is the long wait in the checkout line. It seems that everyone has carts filled to overflowing, and patience zapped from the bumper-car-like challenges it took to get them this far.

I try to avoid such shopping situations, but that isn’t always possible so when I find myself at the end of a long line of tired shoppers with a lot of purchases, I grab a magazine and read till it’s my turn. Of course, I always purchase the magazine because who wants to buy a periodical all read and used.

It was during one such shopping trip that I stumbled across an article on the “proper way” to wash clothes. This article went on for four full-colored pages. I was intrigued. How much could there possibly be to washing clothes?

Step one, according to the writer, was sorting. We were to read the labels on each item, then separate them by hand-wash, dry clean, dry clean only and machine wash. I had no idea there were two dry clean options. Apparently the first is just a suggestion, while the second carries jail time.

Next you go through your machine wash clothing and sort it according to the cycle. Normal, permanent press or gentle. I’ve never used any cycle but normal. I figure if a normal cycle is good enough for my jeans, it’s good enough for everything.

At last, the article says, I must separate my dirty clothes by color starting with dark and gradually moving to light, with real true whites reserved in thier own category.

If I was following these instructions, I would find myself with fifteen piles of two or three items of clothing a piece. Please… who has time for that? I have six children who, for every pair of pants I wash, are getting two dirty.

Step two makes such useful suggestion as checking pockets before loading clothes into the washer – where’s the adventure in that? Most of my spending money comes from stuff that comes out with the clean clothes.

The writer says that you are supposed to zip up zippers, button buttons, tie strings, buckle buckles and snap snaps before ever putting them in to be washed. I’m envisioning a sweet tempered homemaker sitting in a rocking chair and watching afternoon soap operas as she works tirelessly preparing her family’s clothes for their exciting laundering experience.

My loading method is to grab a arm-load of clothes in similar colors, stuff them into the machine, toss in some soap and fabric softener and get back up to the kitchen before the soup boiling on the stove over flows.

The next page suggests ways to make your laundry cleaning experience even better. You can add vinegar or table salt to the rinse cycle to keep colors bright and dye from running onto other clothes. This works great if you happen to be walking by the laundry room, with vinegar and salt when the machine hits this point in its cycle. I’m lucky to get back to the laundry room within a few hours of when the wash finishes.

Their suggestion to dry light loads first and then follow up with heavier materials like terry cloth and denim while the drum is still warm sounds good on paper, but in real life, at least for me, it’s just not happening.

I close the magazine with a smile. Maybe someday in my empty nester future I will buy clothes with instructions like “don’t allow water to ever touch this fabric” or “This sweater will do best if it is given its own room”. But right now, my priority is not the brightness of my kid’s colored t-shirts, but how much time I have to spend with the little bodies that I’m washing them for.

 

Twenty-Five Years of Spending

Do you ever experience those cringe moments when you look back into your past and remember some of the crazy things you did, say at nineteen, before you learned better? Oh I do. If you look up the word “stalker” in the dictionary, definition number 6 merely reads Deanne in college…, but that’s another story. Today I’d like to share a few cringe moments from my first years of marriage.

My husband and I will be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary in a few days (and for those of you doing the math, I was married at twelve and a half). It’s hard to imagine that our little family of two has since grown into a family of ten with possibly two more joining in before the end of the year.

One of the things that still makes me cringe as I look back over the past quarter century is how many stupid things my husband and I spent our money on. We were an easy mark for salesmen, and if I had a nickel for all the dumb purchases we made, I’d probably have enough too…. Well buy something else.

With a mother and a sister in his family, one would have thought my husband would be a little more prepared for the expenses associated with a woman when we got married. But I remember his unhappy shock during our first major shopping trip together after we’d tied the knot. Shampoo, conditioner, razors, tampons AND pads, nylons, nail polish remover, mascara, moisturizer, lotion, body soup and face soap. He’d never guessed how much money went into achieving the look he’d fallen in love with.

What we also didn’t realize at the time was how much the price to maintain that look would go up the older I got.

Another memory is of a summer afternoon, when a guy with his car trunk full of frozen meat cruised through our neighborhood. The price per pound of the beef was too good to resist and since it happened to be a pay-day we thought this would be a great deal.

Unfortunately once we brought our new purchases into the house, we realized that our little refrigerator freezer just wasn’t big enough to store all the meat, so we opened the newspaper’s classified section and found a great price on a used upright freezer. A few days later we discovered that the reason the freeze had been so cheap was because it had a broken seal and wouldn’t stay cold long enough to keep the meat frozen. In the end we had to throw away most of the meat and the seal-less freezer. Talk about a deal.

Then there was the two thousand dollar set of leather bound Encyclopedia Britannica that every family with children was required to have. By the time our kids were old enough to read, the internet was in full swing, and we ended up using the expensive volumes to support one corner of our family room couch.

According to the salesman, the Silver King Vacuum had a body made out of the same metal as fighter jets, and a motor that could power a large go-cart. It cost twelve hundred dollars but it was an investment because it was the last vacuum we’d ever need. Turns out expensive vacuums don’t last any longer than the seventy dollar cheap-os from Wal-Mart even if they can withstand the air pressure at 40,000 feet.

And how could I forget the free dinner at Denny’s if we would listen to the sales pitch of the wonder high-chair salesman. Yes I said high-chair, but this was no ordinary child’s seat. It could be converted to a small table or a booster seat and used for eating, crafts and time out. It was a large square contraption with adjustable legs and wheels so that you could easily move it around the kitchen or take it out back onto the  patio and hose down when needed.

Unfortunately what it was not designed to do was support the weight of three children who were using it to race down the sidewalk. In the process they hit an uneven patch of concrete that threw them all, including the wonder high-chair into the neighbor’s evergreen bushes. The kids were scratched up, crying and I hope a little wiser… but the high-chair didn’t fare as well and would not, as promised, last us until we had grandchildren.

At least our marriage has withstood the test of time, and perhaps the lesson here is that money will come and go… mostly go, but finding the right guy who loves you last forever.

My Life is Like a Water Balloon - no matter how hard I try to get a hold of it, something always bulges out

 

I am sitting down at the computer preparing to write this week’s blog, and as I finish the title, I hear the timer go off in the kitchen, signifying that the dish washer is done with its cycle.

I get up to open the door so that the dishes will be cool when I go to unload them, and notice that the kitchen table is 90% cleared off, and so I stop and gather up a pair of scissors, a glue stick and a crumpled napkin from its surface. With the scissors, glue stick and crumpled napkin gone, I can now see how dirty the table cloth is, so I remove it. Under the table cloth is a trail of muddy cat paw prints. How they got under there I can’t imagine, but I immediately head to the sink to get a sponge.

At the sink, I remember that the dishwasher has finished its cycle so I pull open the door. I notice the sink is filled with dirty dishes. It won’t take me more than a few minutes to unload the dishwasher and get the dirty dishes inside.

A fork falls to the floor, and as I bend down to retrieve it I see my son’s basketball shoes that are, for no good reason, sitting in the middle of the kitchen. It isn’t like he’d have any reason to shed them right there. He doesn’t even cook. But low and behold that’s where they are. So while I’m down there picking up the fork, I grab the shoes as well and head for his bedroom.

I find the light on and the stereo blasting even though he’s been in school for two and a half hours, and in one corner, behind the door, there must be twenty-five empty yogurt cartons. The kid is going through a growth spurt because he is eating me out of house and home.

I gather up the empty cartons and head back to the kitchen where I notice that the garbage can is beyond full. A pizza container is balanced on the top of an empty milk jug, with another six inches of garbage on top of that. So, I stomp it all down with my food, pull out the plastic garbage bag and head out the back door.

While dumping the bag into the outside garbage can I notice two pairs of socks and a t-shirt sitting on the edge of the basketball standard. One can only wonder if stripping while one shoots baskets will improve accuracy. I gather up the dirty clothing, go back into the house and down the stairs to the laundry room.

In the laundry room I notice that the clothes from the dryer need to come out, the clothes from the washer need to be switched and there are plenty of dirty clothes for a new load. Once I’ve shifted the clothing and started all the machines, I grab a basket of my husband’s work clothes and head up the stairs to the bedroom.

I plan to set the basket on top of the comforter, but the bed hasn’t been made yet, so I drop the basket into the computer chair and proceed to make my bed. Half way through I notice that my feet are feeling kind of cold. I’d been wearing my slippers earlier, but had kicked them off under the computer desk.

So, I take the laundry off the computer chair and set it on the ground, sit down, slide my feet under the desk and into my warm slippers and then notice I’ve only written the title of my blog... now where was I going with this?

The Three Eagle Mom

My good friend Jan just had her third and last son achieve the rank of Eagle in the Boy Scouts of America program. Last weekend she planned and pulled off an Eagle Court of Honor that made planning a wedding look like a stroll in the park. She then collapsed and slept for three days in a row.

Now I realize that most of you are familiar with the requirements that a young scout must pass in order to achieve the coveted rank of Eagle. And once those requirements are met, the scout receives a great deal of attention and recognition for that achievement.

However… few people (other than Eagle Mom’s themselves) realize how much work is required of the poor scouting mother. There is no scouting mother’s web page, thick paperback program guide explaining the duties of the mom of an Eagle to be, and no presidential letter thanking dear old mama for getting her kid to make the grade.

So, in an effort to correct this scouting oversight… let me share with you the six requirements to becoming an Eagle Mom. (Note: This is simply the opinion of the writer and not of the BSA, because as we know, the writer thinks she is very funny… and the BSA does not.)

Requirement 1 – Your scout must be actively involved in the scouting program for a minimum of six months. This means that you must use whatever means at your disposal to separate said scout from his video games/TV/computer/girlfriend and make sure he shows up to his scouting activities. It is best to keep a large supply of neckerchiefs and holders on hand as these can disappear at a moment’s notice thus giving said scout a reason to complain and waste time getting ready. Also important to note is that dances, hay rides and pretty much anything involving the opposite sex does not constitute required scout meetings.

Requirement 2 - Your scout must demonstrate he lives by the Scout Oath and Law, and find people willing to write letters saying that he does. For Eagle Mom’s this means nagging, lots and lots of nagging. “Did you get those letters written? Did you find that address? Envelopes and stamps are in the same drawer they have been for the past ten years! People need more time than one afternoon to write a recommendation!

Requirement 3 - Your scout must earn a total of 21 merit badges. Moms, that means that you must become experts in 21 different subjects, and guess what… they aren’t stuff we already know how to do, like juggling a crying baby, a frying pan full of hot oil and a telemarketer all at the same time. It’s stuff like coin collecting, ham radios and my favorite… personal management. You know that kid that you can’t get to bring his dirty clothes from his bedroom to the laundry room without following him with a whip? Yup, that’s the one that’s supposed to learn personal management.

Requirement 4 – Your scout needs to hold and carry out a position of responsibility for a minimum of six months. And again, it’s not the type of responsibility that we mom’s would find really useful like say being in charge of the laundry for six months or simply taking Fido on a walk every night like your scout promised when you got the dog in the first place. It means more driving them to meetings, more reminding them to make phone calls and more last minute trips to the store (cause you can’t have a weenie roast when no one was assigned to bring the hot dogs).

Requirement 5 – Your scout must complete the infamous Eagle Project. A fun little activity where for every one hour your scout puts into it; our Eagle Mom must put in five. First she must help her scout come up with a reasonable project. Something a little less dramatic than a star-studded charity concert to benefit the Haitian relief effort , and a little bigger than clearing the table after an especially large Sunday family dinner. This can be a challenging task for the mom of a boy who takes twenty minutes just to pick out a candy bar at the store.

After providing an extensive list of possible project ideas, and then threatening to turn off all electrical devises in the house if they don’t hurry and choose something, an Eagle Mom must “help” her son plan this event, “remind” him to call all those who will assist in the project, “drive” him to the various locations to pick up supplies and make arrangements and then “provide” four dozen pizzas during the day of the project.

Then when the work is completed, the project is done and the video game beckons, she must push again so that her son will complete his paper work and get credit for all her… oops I mean his work.

Requirement 6 – We are almost there. Now that the project is done, the merit badges are sewn neatly down the sash and the paper work is assembled; your little scout must add a statement of his ambition and life purpose. Just a note… they are looking for BIG things like saving the ozone layer or creating world peace. So getting to level 19 on Virtual Quest, saving Princess Alala and conquering the wicked wizard Bladamad will not work, even if in fact that is your scout’s main ambition in life at the moment.

If after completing all six requirements, you and your scout are still speaking to each other, there is one last final requirement, and mom it’s all yours. You get to plan the huge multi-media event honoring your son for all his work and effort in earning the rank of Eagle Scout.

Then and only then can you collapse and sleep for three days straight! You deserve it. And to all the Eagle Mom’s out there reading this blog, YOU are my heroes.