Apologies to My Mother

Moms put up with a lot. And I'm not saying that because I am one. I'm saying that because I have one. Sometimes, it's only in retrospect that we see what little buggers we were growing up. Every once in a while, when I am unselfish enough to let my kids get what THEY want instead of me getting what I want, I am reminded that my mother went through this also.

Although far more often than I do.

So I'm starting a list. A list of things I got mad at my mom for, when it turned out she was right.

A list of things she warned me about, but I did anyway.

A list of things she didn't get to do or have so I could do or have what I wanted.

So here goes.

#1 — Cleaning for the cleaners.

Throwing in the Towel ... Literally

My husband cleaned up the minions' rooms last night. He got tired of them saying their room was clean and, frankly, it looking kind of clean-ish at first glance, only to find that looks can be deceiving.

These are the clothes that he found under beds, inside bedside table drawers, stuffed behind furniture, etc. [Important Side Note: We washed every stitch of their dirty clothes over the weekend. Or so we thought.]

Clean?

Dirty?

A lot of each?

Your Body Told Me

There are lots of things about parenting that aren't in the handbook. I mean, if there were a handbook. And even if there were, some things just wouldn't be in it.

I learned one of those things from my son's violin teacher. Miss Keiko has no children of her own, but has raised a lot of violin students. Some have been with her for more than a decade. When they go off to college, they still talk to her. She loves that.

Enter Joshua. He started taking lessons with her when he was four years old.

Joshua, age 4, at violin with Miss Keiko

When he was four, her biggest challenge with him was keeping him vertical. He would roll around on the floor, interrupt her constantly, and participate in this stream-of-consciousness conversation that he can really carry on entirely by himself. I don't know where he gets it...Oh, look! There's a birdie!