Motherhood for Dummies

It's Friday! It's late....again! But never fail....I am here. Another one of those running late all day...days. Those seem to happen after Thursday nights at the bar watching my young singer do karaoke. It has become one of the high points of my week (and no...not because there is alcohol) but because I love watching Z sing. I not only love watching him, but I love watching other peoples reactions to him. I can't in a million years imagine getting up and singing in front of a group of people...not to mention singing well, but Z does it with ease. He truly impresses me.

So today is Friday and Friday just seems like the kind of day where you need to kick back and contemplate life. That is why I chose Motherhood for Dummies as Friday's theme. At least this is a subject that I have had much experience with both as a mother and a dummy and I have children who just love to give me daily blog fodder. If they aren't rolling their eyes at me and trying to out talk me with their "vast" years of wisdom, then they are falling down stairs, having seizures, or God forbid.....trying to get their drivers license. All in all....the amount of stories I have spans several decades, five kids, hospital stays, ER trips, laughing, crying and more time outs and groundings than I can even remember.

While I would like to say I got my mothering expertise from my own mom...that just simply is not the case. My mother was a single mom and she had little help raising us....and yet she made it look easy. We had nothing....and yet we wanted for nothing. Mom always made sure we had lots of friends, lots of fun and good basic skills and values to grow up with. She just seemed to know what she was doing no matter the situation and she never panicked. While maybe she held the reins a little tightly with me or quite possibly I just didn't like to be fenced in and so broke down all boundaries.....I grew up okay. I was definitely her challenge though and her famous words to me were "If I give you an inch,...you will always take a mile!" and it was so true. Her next favorite words to me were "I hope you have kids that act just like you do!" and let me just say right now....Thank you Mom....I do! I am sure that there was some kind of curse connected with those words as throughout the years I have had mile takers and boundary breakers galore. Again....Thanks Mom!

The one lesson that I did walk away from my childhood with and have held onto for dear life is, never say your child would never! My mother must have said that a million times while I was growing up. Usually with a name and a naughty child attached to it. It always went something like...."That Mrs. D just told me that her little Janie would never smoke pot. Well I have it on good authority that Janie not only smokes pot...but she also sells it! Poor Mrs. D just doesn't have a clue." Did I mention that mom gossiped a bit too? At any rate...she was usually right. Janie probably was involved in the seedier side of life and her mom probably ended up eating her words about dear little Janie. We all know parents who refuse to believe their little darlings would ever be involved in anything worse than bible study on a Saturday night, when in reality we know for a fact that their kid is every bit as rotten as our kid....but theirs are just a whole lot sneakier.

After years of doing this though....I have learned some valuable lessons. The most important being....that kids are a blessing and yes....sometimes their actions are a curse (usually a grandparents curse to be exact) but at the end of the day, we would never trade them. Heck....we couldn't trade them....no one else would consider it a fair deal. So we walk the floor with them when they are colicky, bandage their knees and kiss their boo boos when they fall down. We cry when we drop them off for that first day of school and again when they walk through those doors for the very last time on their very last day.  We spend nights talking through broken hearts and wounded dreams, we help study for tests and stress over first dates and drivers tests. We laugh with them, cry with them, ground them for life and through it all.....we love them with all our hearts.

So I may not be the reigning Mother of the Year (had to turn in my tiara after man child told me I had a shitty attitude. Apparently both the word and the attitude are frowned upon in polite MOTY society). However....I do the best I can every day and have learned through trial and error and baptism by fire that motherhood is not just a job.....it truly is an adventure!

Hope your Friday night is fun with no residual side effects!