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With Mother’s Day mere hours away, I was ins pired to put pen to
paper, or rather, finger to keyboard, and honor that most important
person in anyone’s life, Mother.
That is one thing everyone has in common, we all have a mother, and my
own rates pretty high on my scale. If there is one thing that pops into
my mind when thinking of my mother, it is cleaning. She is a cleaning
nut. It doesn’t matter whether it is her own house, her yard, her
garage, someone else’s house…she loves to clean and she’s pretty good at
it. Many a Christmas the family waited for Grandma Bell to get the
dishes cleared off the table, wipe down the counters (fifteen times at
least), sweep up crumbs, rinse off the pots and pans and finally,
finally make her way to the tree and presents. As soon as wrappings came
off, away she went picking up bows, tags and paper. It is a testament to
her tactfulness that she could come to our house and not make mention of
the cobwebs, dog hair, cat hair and such that littered the premises. Her
obsession with cleaning has somewhat been passed down to me,
but not to
the extreme to which she has taken it.
 As a youngster, I can remember only one time that my mom got truly mad
at me, not just irritated or disgusted, but downright angry. That
occurred when I was about 10 and all my friends were getting their ears
pierced and she forbade me to follow this trend. Well, I wasn’t about to
be left behind, the only fourth grader without earrings dangling from
infected lobes, so I went ahead and got them pierced anyway. I really
got my butt chewed out, but soon I found a new pair of earrings in my
room and a tiny bit of sympathy when they did indeed become infected.
My high school years should have added a lot of grays to her hair, but
it could be that she never found out about all the hijinks that went on.
Let’s just suffice it to say that ignorance is bliss. I did manage to
convince her to buy me a motorcycle when I was a junior. My two older
brothers had always wanted a motorcycle but hadn’t gotten one, so how I
managed to talk her into it is still a mystery. I didn’t even know how
to drive one, but eventually learned and rode it to school and around
for a couple of years.
The
years went by and I eventually became a mother myself…Ryan being the
first to come along. He was a pretty big baby and while childbirth
wasn’t exactly fun, it wasn’t a big deal either. Then came Jordan. Now
my skills as a mother would truly be tested. From day one, she was a
trial! She couldn’t be born in a hospital like any other baby…Oh no…she
decided to arrive en route to the hospital, about 8 miles from home at
the Mennonite Church Parsonage! Dick delivered her on the couch of the
young pastor and his wife with their 3 children looking on. That should
have been a sign of things to come! When Alex came along, we were
prepared to make a mad dash to the hospital and made it with an hour to
spare. He was a whopper! 10 pounds and it felt like 20…I had burst blood
vessels in my eyes (and elsewhere, but you don’t need those gory
details!).
Throughout the years, I have often felt like a failure at motherhood. I
am constantly worrying about things that will most likely never happen.
For instance, when my kids began to drive I worried obsessively about
them having an accident, especially when the road conditions weren’t
absolutely perfect. If it happened to be foggy, I called home and warned
them to leave early and drive slowly. If it was snowing, I called home
and told them to leave early and drive slowly. If it was icy, I really
panicked and told them to ride the school bus (which they refused to do)
and warned them of all the areas they needed to pay special heed to. The
boys took it in stride, but Jordan would become furious. She hated it
when I called her about road conditions, which is something I couldn’t
figure out. I always thought it would be nice if someone had gone ahead
of me and reported the bad spots before I started out. This is one habit
I’ve never been able to break and I still drive her crazy with my
worries. BUT…sometimes mother knows best!
One time, when Ryan was a sophomore, he had to drive to basketball
practice during Christmas vacation and the roads were extremely icy. I
called home and told him he would need to leave early and drive slowly
and don’t forget to put the pickup in 4 wheel drive. Soon, a call came
in on my cell phone…”Mom, I went in the ditch and wrecked the pickup!”
After assuring me that he was unhurt, I calmed down and figured it
couldn’t be that bad. He hadn’t rolled the pickup so how badly could it
be wrecked? Well, he had collided with a telephone pole, so it was
pretty well wrecked. Poor Ryan, he had to face his dad and tell him the
bad news. Just goes to show you, listen to your mother!!
 Also on my list of bad mothering are my unhealthy eating habits which my
kids have inherited. I love candy, chocolate, pop, and most junk foods.
As a result, my kids also enjoy the foods that are not so good for them.
Raw cookie dough, rolls, bars, pie. If it is bad for a person, we like
it. A good mother would have encouraged fresh fruits and vegetables. But
perhaps the one thing that made me believe I was a crappy mother was
when Jordan announced to us that she was pregnant in her senior year of
high school. What kind of mother would have let something like this
happen? We soon learned that it wasn’t the end of the world and Jordan
continued through her school year, staying on the 4.0 and graduating in
May of 2003. In June she gave birth to our little Peyton and has gone on
to marry Calvin. She started college that fall and in 2005 had Emerson,
so her days are hectic with nursing school, her new photography
business, two little girls, and a house to keep. Somehow she gets it all
done and very well, I must say! We kept the two girls for a week while
they studied for finals and how she accomplishes anything with them is a
miracle! And Ryan has a good job, has managed to stay out of jail and is
self supporting. Alex is heading towards a promising career in auto body
repair and has wrangled himself a super nice gal (who may even get him
to go to church!)
Hey, come to think of it, maybe I didn’t do such a bad job after all!
Here’s wishing a Happy Mother’s Day to my mom, and to Jordan and what
the heck…Happy Mother’s Day to me, too! We’ve earned it!
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