Skip to main content

the Mommy protectors

One of my co-worker's husband is out-of-country leading college kids on a mission trip to Honduras. She has four kids, and was laughing today about how her children all fight over who is going to sleep with Mom.
I couldn't help but laugh. As a child, we always worried about mother sleeping by herself when Dad was away. When my brother was somewhere between the ages of 10-12, he announced to my sisters and I that he was the boy of the family, and when Dad was gone he should be the one to sleep with Mom. The next morning Mother, after telling us about Andy kicking and squirming all night, informed us that she appreciated the offers, but we were too big to sleep with her, and she was a grown woman and could sleep by herself. We laughed, but agreed.
I don't know where we came up with the concept that Mother had to have someone to sleep with her. Maybe we girls just wanted a chance to share a bed with someone besides our sister, maybe it was the fact that she was alone, but whatever reason, we felt like someone had to be there with her. Dad always found it funny, but I'm not so sure Mom did. The crazy thing is, as a child, I thought my parent's queen size bed was HUGE. On Sunday mornings (before we hit our teen years) the four of us would all get up early and crash on their bed laying different directions and talk and giggle. Now that I'm grown and Bobby and I have a queen size bed, it suddenly doesn't seem so big. Funny how time changes our perspectives, isn't it?

Comments

Jennifer said…
that sounds like my kids when jack is out of town. i can't sleep with any of them because they kick, turn, and get right up beside me!

Popular posts from this blog

things we do for love

Saturday we had a baby shower for Bobby's niece. As I was making the mints, Bobby asked what else was on the menu. After I recited off the litany of items, he responded with "No peanut butter?! This shower is for Hannah! What's she going to eat?" (Hannah has had stomach problems over the years and has been unable to tolerate many foods, but peanut butter has been her staple.) Despite my assurances that she would enjoy the foods we were having, he was adamant that I needed to make peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for the shower. Even though I protested that NOBODY took that to a shower, he persisted, and informed me I could make them dainty with my little cutter. And so I did. To my surprise all but 3 were eaten. Who'd a thunk it?

get your house in order

My grandmothers were very clean people. My mother thoroughly enjoys cleaning, though she doesn't quite hit the same level my grandmothers were on. I don't enjoy cleaning, but I do like things to be clean. I've almost given up on neatness. One thing that they all instilled in me is the crazy concept that your house must be in order before you go somewhere big - like a vacation or something. After all, you could die in a car crash or have to go to the hospital, and then people would go into your house and find it in a terrible mess. Who wants to be remembered by that? So up until this past year, I would sometimes be up almost all night not only trying to get things packed up, but also trying to totally clean house as well. Or should I say, make the house presentable? The Chinese had a horrible superstition that my mother and grandparents would have enjoyed. Spring Festival (the Chinese New Year based on the lunar calendar) required EVERYTHING to be cleaned top to

Wait...it's almost March?!?

 10 more months 'til Christmas. This last month has been an absolute blur. Cleaning at Mrs. Bryan's house, cleaning at our house, lots of thinking and brainstorming and rearranging, appointments upon appointments, sinus infection/allergies, Bobby's surgery, meeting with surgeon and finally agreeing to future outpatient surgery for me, ongoing updates from my parents, garden tilled and snow peas, potatoes and beets planted (and yes I left several rows empty between the potatoes and beets for something else to go later as a buffer), chickens are laying, we may have a broody hen..in FEBRUARY!!!, we have two roosters that need to disappear, lots of family have been in from out of town to assist with the sorting and cleaning at Mrs. Bryan's house, and somewhere in the midst of it all I've found time to pay bills and catch up on a few emails. While I no longer feel like our house is a disaster zone, it is still overwhelming. Years ago a friend posted a quote by Martin Lut