Category Archives: Mothers

I was never worried

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While thinking about my life as a Mother…..while the most recent holiday was just upon us, I reminded myself how amusing it is that I turned out as good at it as I am. Not to brag , but I would say I have been fairly successful. What I mean to say is to my knowledge my children don’t hate me…yet. Of course, keep hope alive kids…there is always time!

Cover of "Some Kind of Wonderful (Special...
Cover via Amazon

To Begin With

My future was not always so bright in the area of potential motherhood. As a matter of fact my prospects for a date weren’t all that great! By the time I hit high school all my peers seem to peak in their developmental stride. Me, of course, never even knew there was such a thing as puberty…..fun for me in many ways, but not so much fun when you were as boy crazy as I was. Yes…I was that girl, I had tons of boy-friends! Not BOYFRIENDS! To my dismay, I just wasn’t the kind of girl they wanted….unless it was to hang out and ride around town and laugh and be the go-between in the hunt for babes! I guess you could say I was like ” Watts” in the movie Some Kind of Wonderful and I had several “Keith” characters I was crushing on. I promise I had more fun than the other girls.

Finally

By nearly all the way thru my Senior year at seventeen and three-fourths, I finally began to ….let’s just say mature! Just the beginnings though…..finally got a date or two….scared the crap out of me…..was not ready for ALL THAT! Would prefer to stay “Watts.” So I did and had the best time in the world. Apparently my reputation preceded me and I ended up in the annual with a snarky “staff” writer opinion! I went back to re-read what it stated and now I am even more bugged by it. Stupid freaks on the annual staff! They added a lot of snarky comments to the graduating seniors BIO.

See example A.

example A

Notice the last (2) lines….emphasis on last one! Of course maybe when I stated that...” Marriage will be a last resort unless someone comes along to change my mind.” caused the freaks to use this against me. This was only self preservation…a lonely girls cry for help…..sad, poor silly girl, yet to be grown-up! They make sitcoms about girls like me now! Born before my time once again…..story of my life! This still does not give the freaks rights to be judge and jury!

The joke’s on them…by college and about nineteen years old I was on my way….no Farrah Faucet-Majors (that was her name then!) but I could hold my own! In high school my awkwardness gave way to becoming a good person…not like the self involved girls (though I longed to be like them…I wasn’t that good!)

So.….when I was well into college, after I had loved and lost a couple of times, I fell for a good one and as to not give him “the big head” I will not embarrass him with the details. But I fell hard and fast and with him we had four gorgeous children AND I think I was a pretty darn good wife. He is still with me after thirty years and I am confident of thirty more. He did come along to change my mind and I have never looked back.

For all those awkward immature young girls out there who wonder if they were going to ever evolve into a woman…..hang on it will happen and I will tell you just as my Mom told me….when it happens you will be sorry….watch what you ask for! Enjoy the innocence and take time to enjoy the ride. Do like me and prove all those boys wrong…..the ones that peaked early and are bald or balding and have a bit of a belly…working on their second or third wife! It is their loss. And to all the ones who hold all the power in high school…I officially stick my tongue out at you…stupid bunch of freaks!

By the way.

……if there is a “stupid bunch of freaks” society that I have been rude to and UN-Politcally correct to…please forgive. This is my blog…I can gripe if I want to! And I was never worried!!

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Am I Mother Enough!?…don’t get me started!

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In honor of Mother’s Day I feel compelled to give the real and freakishly truthful NEWS about motherhood. This is not only a gripe session but is a call out to all the sensible mothers out there.

Being a mother is the hardest job in the world but also the most rewarding. We women are pretty special. We create people in our womb. Yes, we need help from the guys but still pretty awesome nonetheless! I see it as a great honor as well as a place of great responsibility.

I am not amused by the happy-go-lucky attitude of some people. This brings me to the point …

AM I MOM ENOUGH?

Get real!!!

Are you Mom enough?

If TIME Magazine can write a story on it, I suppose I can too!

Y’all had to take something so sweet and turn it into a curiosity, a non-news event.

Report on news that will cause us all to have good jobs or how to be millionaires in ten easy steps or something equally as moronic.

For Pete’s sake, we’ve been doing this for years. Y’all just now figuring all this out!?! I don’t remember anyone doing an expose’ on me nursing my four kids!

It is nauseating — your compelling news story on the FRONT PAGE is asking — am I mom enough!?!

SHUT UP!!

Is this the deciding factor? Nursing or staying attached longer to our children?

Do not get me wrong. I am all for it, breast-feeding that is. I had this honor — times four. It was joyful and precious and sweet and a special time in my life. I think any woman who chooses to experience this should be commended and honored, as well as those who choose not to.

It is each women’s “RIGHT” to choose what they do with their own body, if I am not mistaken. At least that is what I heard growing up in the ’60’s and I do still believe to this day. I also believe we all have a moral compass which guides us in all areas of our womanhood.

What happened to good taste and etiquette?

I do think that it shouldn’t be anything goes, which brings me to this article. Since when do we feel the need to broadcast one of the most intimate things between a woman and her child? What happened to the element of good taste?

Many years ago, when I was a young mother, still nursing my first-born, we had another couple over for dinner. About the time for dessert, the woman “whips out her left breast” and begins to nurse her baby right there at the dinner table!

My husband, being a man of great strength, looked straight ahead at me, never staring at this woman directly (much like the sun) while watching me nearly blow a gasket. No blanket to cover up, nothing! How rude could she be? Apparently VERY RUDE!

When I finally commented on it, the only answer I got was, “it is as natural as can be!”

BULL — she was an exhibitionist!

Don’t get me wrong. It is natural. And if I lived in the jungles of Africa, and that was the norm, then, by all means, I would be whipping it out with all the other women. They also had to carry big baskets on their heads and draw water miles away from their home and so on. We live in a MODERN WORLD here in America! I would like to see her work like a mule in that culture — selective freedoms I say!

God has blessed us with smart people who invented indoor plumbing and wagons to haul stuff and nice little comfortable recliner chairs — and doors with locks, behind which to go and nurse our babies in peace and quiet. We can enjoy this precious time with our little ones — instead of being out in a noisy room with people gawking at us. That cannot be peaceful and satisfying for babies.

Am I wrong here?

"Joan of Arc Saved France," a 1918 U...

The unabashed drama of women who swagger around like Joan of Arc to prove a point — to prove they can! Oh Lordy, makes me want to choke. And, just in case anyone reads this and thinks — what a prude — wrong, so very wrong! I am the least prudish person you would ever meet. I have no false pride and am very aware of the world around me. That is the problem.

Back to the story …

I knew then this chick, who felt so free to sprawl out in front of God and everybody, was going to be a pill. A few years later this woman proved me right.

She managed to cause pain and discourse through her own family. Mostly, because she didn’t want anyone to be the boss of her! Give me a break! She had no character. And, if she had, she would have been more discreet about what is one of the most lovely acts any woman can perform.

These babies that we are given deserve the attention they should receive, not in a hurry up and get this done fashion, or as if they’re in the way of our lives. Take the time to nurture them.

So, after seeing this magazine cover, I must say it has become an homogenized world out there. Take something so sweet and make it mundane and common. Take all the goodness out of it and add in filthy stares and glares.

I promise you this, as the mother of three men, they were not looking at the picture with “oh how sweet that is” eyes. It was more like, what a babe! Wish that kid wasn’t in the way!

Once again, sex sells! Can’t fight city hall, I guess.

Furthermore, as if my rant hasn’t been enough, a word on the principle of “the attachment philosophy.”

Heaven help us!

Take it from a mother who nurtured ’til the cows came home, I couldn’t have been a more cuddly or huggy or kissy or allow my kids to pile up in the bed with us parent. We absolutely smothered them with attention and affirmation as well as a good whippin’ when they needed it. Not that I condone that. I have evolved! And, I wish we hadn’t, but we learn from this and it wasn’t done harshly. Just hard to think of it now.

Although, ours were normal kids with all the lies and trouble three kids can cause. We were a very close family and still are so we must have not done too badly with them.They are still pretty darn clingy, which I must say I love — most of the time!

I do feel that the twenty years (ugh!) I stayed home with them may have been better if I had left them a bit more. As I look back, a tour of duty at a daycare may not have been too harmful. It could have toughened them up. Helped them learn some street smarts and how to fend for themselves. My kids were woefully unprepared for real life and they weren’t even home schooled! (No offense to home schooled kids. That is just the banter people say — that they won’t be socialized enough!) My kids were socialized. I just think they were attached to me too much, which was my own doing I know! Mother guilt hard at work!

So when I see the front cover of a national magazine with a picture of a three-year-old boy attached to his momma‘s breast, I want to yell, “come talk to me in twenty years!!” I’ll be saying, “How’s that working for ya!”

Mother's Day card
Mother’s Day card (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Happy Mother’s Day to all the girls out there who have sacrificed their lives, bodies and heart for their children. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it was all worth it but I wouldn’t have minded not losing my twenty-something body. Yes, I am blaming my four for that!

It is Mother’s Day. I can do that just today!!!

Oh Brother!

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ImageGrowing up in a large family can be at best, the most awesome time of ones life and at the worst, the most awesome time of ones life! I can speak of this first hand since I am the youngest child in a family of five kids. Yes the answer is clear now……the reason why I am what I am….I am the youngest child which makes me….the BABY! The last and bottom rung of the ladder….the bottom step in the stair steps of young uns’ in our family. But, someone had to be the first step…the jumping off point, if you will, to the beginnings of our clan which brings me to my thoughts for this day.

This is the special day that my big brother was born…nine years before me…the leader of the pack! I can not even describe the amount of adoration I have always had for my brother. It was borderline sheer worship at different times in my life…..who could blame me? He is the only son, my only brother and as old as he is in reference to me…that nine years was a huge gap. A gap that has always been more like a “grand canyon-esque” hole and I spent most of my teenage years yearning for his attention. Sadly he wasn’t there….at nineteen he volunteered and entered the Vietnam War.

Needless to say It was very hard to see him leave. Timing is everything. This exodus coincided with the season of change our family was in. My father had left us, high and dry, so to speak, they sold my beloved farm and my Mom, Me and two sisters moved “to town”. Since we lived in the country it was a big deal, at least to me. City schools and city kids and a world of adventure as well as fear.It’s tough on those mean streets!

My brother went through all his basic training and ended up becoming an ARMY helicopter pilot which no one was more prouder than me. But he gave up so much, he was in college, left his home and family but to him he probably chose the lesser of the two worlds. Life was hard for the oldest child back then, this beautiful boy who grew up fishing and hunting as well as being made to work like a mine mule. I think he was living the dream on one hand on our beloved farm but still having to “man up” to my father’s demands.

I was always intrigued by his bedroom and always wanted to sneak in there and see what secrets it held. I was reminded of his room many years later when I opened the door of my eldest sons room and there was an undeniable “boy scent!” It took me straight back to those days of standing at my brother’s door daring myself to enter in……chicken as I was I never did, but that scent of sweaty man boy was the same. Funny how things like that stick in your mind or should I say senses, just like the fact I can’t pick up a book without smelling it. Yep, I am weird! His kingdom was one that I had never trod but I desperately wanted in. The next few years were filled with anticipation and fear. I can not even bear to feel the pain our Mom must have felt knowing her baby was so far away in a War. This is one emotion I never want to feel. Breaks my heart for her but he seemed to take it in stride and had a big adventure….in case anyone ever wondered…he was the one who saved so many people as well as single-handed kept the bad guys at bay. He was/is an American HERO and there has never been any question about that.

When he came back from defending the American Way (Superman wasn’t the only one!) he went and met a girl and got married! About the time I thought he was coming back home…to ME! he gets married!!! Who does she think she is….. this hateful girl…I was not happy about this news and I was in a pout for a good while…even when I went to the wedding, I acted okay but I was mad on the inside. I had lost him for ever! I was never going to really get to know him. Probably a good thing because if I had ever learned of his frailties or human-ness I may have been crushed. In my world he is larger than life. Nobody had a greater big brother than me and if they ever tested that fact I would prove them wrong….I had my list of his bravery! I did get a few bonuses…the time he came home in his Shelby Cobra and he picked me up at high school….boy was that a thrill and I had to be the coolest Oakland High School girl ever! I eventually accepted this chick who stole my brother…..truthfully, I LOVED HER! She was kind and very sweet to me, I couldn’t keep from loving her. A few years later they made me an aunt and I was even more enamored with this beautiful little boy. Then they had another boy and these two were precious.

Later on they were transferred to a base closer to home which was great. I was able to go there to visit, stay the weekend and one time I was invited to go on base to a dance with them. Although I was a little disappointed because none of the guys gave me much attention…someone said it was because I was his sister and the word was…steer clear! So in that case, I wasn’t offended….even though I thought I was pretty cute back then…(ha-ha) it was even better that he was being protective. Ahhhh the best feeling ever! Though I think if my memory serves me I ended up figuring out how to bypass his protection….I was in college for Pete’s sake…a gal’s gotta flirt!

I have always been a little sister and have been blessed with great siblings who never really picked on me, they always nurtured me and looked out for me and my love for them all is BIG. My brother was always kind of mystery which probably was a preview to marrying a man…..seems like they all are a mystery to some extent. I always compared every guy I ever dated to my brother. Sadly my father wasn’t my role model, I loved him but he was absent enough to not be first and foremost. My brother was the perfect Man in my world. Oh the mocking I have endured because of my gushing about my brother. I just take it in stride and proudly laugh because I know he is amazing and I don’t care who I tell.

The years have kept us apart but he was there for me to walk me down the aisle on my most important day. The sweetest part was when I stated, as we were nearly walking in that…” I didn’t want to do all this!” meaning walking in and being stared at (the most embarrassing thing on earth) he quickly responded…”if this isn’t what you want we can go right out the back door!” AWEEE how sweet! “NO” I said, “I want to marry him I just don’t want to be stared at!” I really was bashful way back when!! So after I explained, we were good to go. he held my hand and I was so proud to have him by my side. It was just like I was a fairy princess. My favorite man was taking me to my new favorite man….it doesn’t get much sweeter than that. There have been other times in my life since then that he has been there for me…I have called him to pour out my heart, ask for help and counsel and sometimes just to shoot the breeze. Not that he is a big talker…but he is a good listener…not that he could get a word in edge wise with me anyways!

Distance and time has been the enemy of our relationship as it is for most siblings. We grow up and away, create new lives apart from our childhood, but I cant help but feel like the squirt kid sister when I am with them all at one time. I bow to their pecking order, keep my place and enjoy the placement of my step in this stair step world of brothers and sisters. We know each other in a unique way…we know each others history, real or like-real in our own minds. I know my fantasy life I built around my brother is mostly just that. But it is my memory and I can keep it in my heart just the way I want to.

Happy Birthday Big Brother! I love you and am proud to know you. You have enriched my life more than you will ever know.

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Flower Whisperer

Alzheimers, Family, humor, hope, LIFE, Mothers, Old Age, Uncategorized, ,

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Today I found myself amazed once again by the ability of my Mom in the area of flower growing. My whole life she has had a green thumb. In reality I think she has green all the way to her elbows! She is the flower whisperer!
 I have to admit I have always been jealous of her for this one, it appears she doesn’t even try….not even the look of wonder on her face! Will they grow….will each one of those seeds actually bloom? Never a question in her mind……HOW DOES SHE DO IT?!!!!!
 So annoying! I have killed more plants than she has grown….yet I keep on trying, every year, over and over. Only to see a few of them actually survive. I think one clue is patience….which pretty much explains it. This is the missing gene in me and the same reason I can not keep from burning cookies and bread in the oven. I walk away, impatient….ugh!
 Working in her garden is like her Zen, her place of peace. Pulling weeds, planting rose bushes, Marigolds and zinnias all of which grow bountifully. This is her special joy and at this time in her life when her thoughts are fleeting as soon as she thinks them, this gardening is still with her feeding her soul.
 Thanks for the heritage you are leaving me, I too adore flowers and I never think it a waste to buy fresh-cut flowers for someone. Maybe she will leave this gift to me, somehow the gene I was born without may stir up in me. And maybe that flower whisperer power will jump on me. I fear it won’t though since my oldest sister seems to have gotten it! Bummer!

Frisbee kinda day!

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Nothin’ better than sittin’ on the front porch watching three of your grown kids throwin’ a frisbee! These lazy peaceful Sundays are what make the other dreary days survivable… Even lessens stress and reminds you that the most simple of times are still the best.
These days when the sun isn’t so hot and the trees are budding leaves; birds are chirpin’ and our lil’ black…..thinks he’s a rotweiller! Dawg trips over his tongue from all the running. I have never seen a dog more interested in the chase than this one and would rather die than get a drink of water.
I am loving’ this tiny moment in time, it is what keeps a family strong. I will never be more thankful than to see my kids be best friends. They have learned the hard way that the four of them are the most trusted compadres and even when they are sworn enemies for the moment( usually boys against girl!)they would defend one another with the fierceness of warriors.
Of course this is usually when in opposition to us…the parents. Not much ever changes in the family dynamic which these days makes me even more thankful for my little piece of the pie. I am the luckiest momma in the world and I know it!
My prayer is they will always love/hate each other more than anyone else and remember no other people know what they all know collectively, the battles fought and the hearts broken; secrets kept as well as lives saved. Siblings are a unique group and it is still odd the differences in them even though the experiences were nearly the same. Ah birth order, you are a fickle fate!
But on this lazy afternoon of Scrabble, Sorry(a game of many screams and defeat!) and now frisbee, life couldn’t get much sweeter!

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MOM or 666!

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My darling daughter let me in on her private (not so much any more) secret that makes her giggle every time she calls me on her cell phone. I must say it is pretty funny although it does involve mean and cruel jokes at my expense. It appears that on her phone she can type the word MOM and the numbers that show up are 666!

“NO WAY!!!” I respond but, to my dismay it is true! Kinda makes you wonder about, way back when Alexander Graham Bell was toying with this new fangled idea of a way to communicate…the Telephone, he possibly…”accidentally”….. “on purpose”… worked it out that the “O” and “M” letters would be on the same key and end up with the dreaded sign of the ANTICHRIST! He could have quite easily had “M and N” on a number and let “O” dangle over there with “P”...I mean he was the one designing the darn thing!

Could it have been that the memories of his own sainted mother rang out in a nagging voice, during this time of inspiration and invention, reminding him of all the late night sessions of creativity of his godly mother (telling him to turn the light off and go to bed!)….who only loves her son Alex and wants him to get a good nights sleep and eat well and do good in school and meet a nice girl and settle down and…and…and….all those things mothers for centuries have wanted for their children…could it be that he might have possibly jumbled those letters up all on one number, just to have his own private joke?I shutter to think it and at the same time I would be so proud of him!

Or was this just the luck of the draw and became a treat for all those kids who just now and then need a laugh? Odds are good that is the case but it is comforting, as a mother, that my kids are overjoyed when they type my name in their phone and be reminded…..”don’t mess with ME….I am dangerous!!!” Children have really so little true power, ultimately we do hold the keys to the kingdom and it is little comfort to them to once in a while they get to …”stick it to the MAN!”…or MOM in this case.

It has not been that long ago (well, I am lying it has, go with me here!) that I was one of those kids and I too would have liked to get my mom once in a while. I seem to remember a dread full pleated skirt that I thought made be look huge…I was like 4’11” and weighed probably all of 98lbs….yep I was soooo huge! Makes me gag thinking how skinny I once was! But to me, then..those pleats all the way around that ugly skirt were awful! and I NEVER WORE THE SKIRT!…never even had the tags off, hung in my closet till it eventually disappeared. Send it to the poor girls around the world that “would love to have a nice ugly skirt”….but I did hear about it over and over…blah, blah,blah!

But because ..what goes around comes around, I too have my wars with my precious God sent angel face little girl and I think it probably was over an outfit. Funny how I have so little memories of those arguments with my own daughter…hmm, selective memory I would guess! The last time I mentioned that atrocious skirt of mine to my MOM she rolled her eyes and had no memories of it either….ouch, I feel ya Momma!

The great thing about this funny quip is that we all dial that MOM number a lot….and the coincidence is just that and I hope that my girl never stops. Just don’t fret I am a writer ya know! I have my ways to retaliate!!

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PIE not PI…..!

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FoodFriday #17: Cracker Barrel - Old Country Store
FoodFriday #17: Cracker Barrel - Old Country Store (Photo credit: inju)

In respect of PIE day I wanted to relay my favorite kind… It has to be apple! To be exact I only like the kind that is with pre cooked apples…not the kind that has been sliced fresh and layered in the pie shell with no goopie sugary sauce like stuff, it needs all the mushy flavorful cooked apple part. I am very picky about this fact as if anyone had ever wondered. It is a warm and yummy, cinnamon filled, crusty luscious goodness that is always first on my list of great desserts. I am not a huge dessert girl but if I do indulge it would be pie……I really like pie the best of all dessert! My mom made chocolate and coconut and lemon(3 separate pies!) that were to die for so it is hard to pick. I have the hidden recipes that are a family treasure, our inheritance. I learned to make my husbands dads favorite which was his moms specialty , custard pie. Not a fan but it did smell good! Once again … Cinnamon and nutmeg! A lady who was a family friend made a key lime pie that I shamelessly begged for whenever I could( funerals etc) and then when I delivered my only daughter, 24 years ago mind you, so good i still remember it, a lady from our church made me a Boston Creme Pie, oh my Lord! Not really pie but still as dreamy! LOVED it! My second son loves my fudge pie, not as good as an old restaurant that was in Nashville a ton of years ago, Ireland‘s but pretty dang good! I loved that place, the best little steak n biscuits ever and fudge pie of course. Yep, I would say I love pie, even cobbler will do, as long as I get a lot if crust…. Oh shout out to The Cracker Barrel too, they have a chocolate cobbler that is crazy good, I wouldn’t believe it but my husband made me try it, sold! Why do I doubt him? So in honor of PIE day…..I salute you, the real and only Pie I can understand!

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Flower Whisperer

Alzheimers, Family, humor,hope, LIFE, Mothers, Old Age, Parents, Uncategorized

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Today I found myself amazed once again by the ability of my Mom in the area of flower growing. My whole life she has had a green thumb. In reality I think she has green all the way to her elbows! She IS the flower whisperer!
I have to admit I have always been jealous of her for this one, it appears she doesn’t even try….not even the look of wonder on her face! Will they grow?….will each one of those seeds actually bloom? Never a question in her mind……HOW DOES SHE DO IT?!!!!!
So annoying! I have killed more plants than she has grown….yet I keep on trying, every year, over and over. To see only a few of them actually survive. I think one clue is patience….which pretty much explains it. This is the missing gene in me and the same reason I can not keep from burning cookies and bread in the oven. I walk away, get bored. My children are the ones who bake cookies, they don’t even want me to try!
Working in her flowers is like my Mom’s peace, she loves her time in her yard and proof is in the puddin’ so to speak. She can simply drop a few seeds in the ground and poof! Beautiful every time versus ME! Just like I watch her make chicken and dumplins’, a southern staple, looks easy enough but, NO I am unable to do it! She has the touch!
She doesn’t cook much anymore, gone are the days of homemade chocolate pies, dumplings and biscuits. But she still has her gardening. Though her mind has bailed on her, the very thoughts are fleeting as soon as she thinks them but there she is pulling weeds and planting Zenias, marigolds and rose bushes that will be pretty as a picture every time.
This gives her joy and that is a good thing, that flower whisperer Momma of mine!