All this week, the authors of Love Inspired are sharing about motherhood. You know--the joys, the thrills, the spills, the headache pills. And in my case today, the suspense of it all!
Being a mother can be suspenseful. When my daughter was young, we had to move across the country. I was driving the Chevy Blazer, loaded with plants, a turtle in a dishpan of water and my daughter. My husband was up ahead in a U-Haul truck. He told me (this was before cell phone days) that if I needed him to flash my head lights. We'd been an hour out, when I looked in the rear-view mirror and say a giant grasshopper hovering on a fern leaf right behind my head. Not just any grasshopper--but what we call a Georgia Thumper. Ugly and big. I didn't say anything to my daughter but I immediately starting flashing my light. My husband pulled over and came to the window. "What is it?" he said. We'd only been on the road about an hour. "There is a Georgia Thumper in here," I replied. "And I'm not driving across the country with him."
My husband managed to get the big ugly grasshopper out and sent him back toward the state line. My daughter told me, "Mom, bugs are our friends. I don't know why you're so scared." I didn't have the heart to tell her we'd probably brought along a few lizards in our fern, too. But much later as it got dark outside, her bravery seemed to end. She pushed down in her seat and finally said on a wail, "I want outta here."
So did her mother. I also remember one night when my son was young and a group of boys were sleeping over. But we had some weird neighbors like the ones on that movie "The Burbs." So we all lay down on our stomachs in the dark and stared out the bay window, watching a strange white van that kept creeping by the burb house down the street. In all the excitement, I felt a hand on my back very near my bottom. I said "Uh, whose hand is that?" One of the boys, thinking he was holding onto a buddy, said on a low whisper "Sorry, Miss Lenora."
Ah, the drama, the suspense of being a mother. You never know what's around the corner. Spilled milk or water balloon fights. Your son's friend swimming in suspenders and shorts or a group of boys driving up in a pick-up with their own version of a hot tub in the truck bed. Your shy well-behaved daughter getting into a cat fight behind the bleachers at a football game. Never a dull moment, being a mother. But you also get pretty hand-made cards that you keep forever and coffee mugs that make you smile. You get long phone calls where you put on your counselor hat and short phone conversations where you know you've overstepped your bounds.
Being a mother is the toughest job of all. It doesn't hurt to have a little covert training. Because we know that a mother will fight for her children to the finish. And then some. Happy Mother's Day. And if you want to read some other cute Mother's Day stories, you can follow Lyn Cote and others on e-harlequin at:
http://community.eharlequin.com/forums/love-inspired/humorous-family-stories-lyn-cote
or go to the Craftie Ladies of Love Inspired blog at: http://craftieladiesofromance.blogspot.com
We'll be posting around the Internet all week long! We'll be mothers forever!
8 comments:
Great post. Made me wish we were neighbors and had kids the same age.
Thanks for sharing. What an awesome thing it is to be a mother. I'm a mom of 3 and there is never a dull moment at my house either. Keeps life interesting :o)
I have lots more tales. But I have to protect the innocents. Not!!!
I loved this post, Lenora. I shouldn't be surprised at how you captured the emotion and suspense in each anecdote. It's fun remembering our kids' shenanigans. I didn't tell my son about telling on him yesterday. :-)
Lyn, I didn't mentions names either. I used to write a column for the newspaper so I learned NOT to ever give out too much information. Even though it was tempting at times to embarrass my children. And Lyn, my links didn't work! I'm so cyberly challenged. But our readers can follow us anyway if they can figure out my links. I told you I'd create chaos!!!
Lenora, you made me smile! And empathize. And think of the suspenseful things I've been through with my children. Like the night a couple of months ago, my daughter comes tearing into the bathroom where I was drying my hair and says she heard something outside. I walk into the kitchen thinking she's being overly dramatic (she's 12, it's possible) and I hear it too!! Voices outside my kitchen window near the garage. The dog is barking like crazy. And we hear, "Shut up, dog." Then, "Get down from there and help me."
Someone was trying to steal my husband's trailer with his sound stuff in it! What do I do? Grab the keys to my car and set off the car alarm. THEN I call 911. Of course by the time they got here, the perps were gone. My daughter was so impressed with my fast thinking. {Giggle} but we were pretty scared. We can laugh about it now.
Thanks for bringing that memory back. I'm smiling even as I press "publish your comment"!
Wonderful post.
Being the mother of 5 and grandmother of 1 I can relate to the "do you remember when" stories. They are wonderful memories: some sad, some funny, all precious.
We've moved cross-country 5 times in our married life and since my husband always goes first while the kids & I wait behind to finish school or sell the house, it's always the 4 of us, the cat and our van driving across country and we've had experiences like yours! Like the time our usually docile cat decided to freak out and attack me at a rest stop - I was bleeding all over the place so my 10 year old son (at the time) had to get out the first-aid kit and try to bandage his poor mother before driving on! Ah the memories! Now all my kids are in college and I can look fondly at those days :) Valri westernaz@msn.com
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