Just to be clear my mom is human and prone to make mistakes. Some of those mistakes still cause her great distress and I know she wishes she could take them back, but I verily believe no woman can consider herself a mother unless and until she has one or two mistakes under her maternal belt that haunt her in her sleep.
However it goes her career as my mother good, bad or indifferent has shaped who I am as a woman, a wife and a mother myself and I think I'm pretty awesome. Even if it's only me who believes it.
I was talking to my mother the other day and she agreed that she must have done something right; she kept me alive, fed me, clothed me, and she didn't leave me on the side of the road...for very long.
Her words and true story. I watched the tail lights of the van disappear many times as a kid. So much so that it didn't even phase me. I always wore shoes and developed an amazing sense of direction. I could find my way home without breadcrumbs or a map.
Actually, the four kids all wore shoes at all times because in our indigent state we ran out of gas a lot. Well, we were poor and my mom really hated stopping for gas.
So I wanted to share a few things I learned as a result of my mother mothering me.
I never under any circumstances ever leave water in the sink after I've washed the dishes. In fact, as soon as the dishes are washed, I wring out the sponge, pull the plunge, rinse out the sink and wipe it down. That is, I did those things before my children took over dish duty, and it is the gold standard because the first time I found cold water in the sink I raised such a stink they've never forgotten it.
Now you may be thinking, "of course you do the dishes that way, it's common sense." Yes. Common sense, but the reason I make sure it's done that way is because my mother was a serial leave-water-in-the-sink-er. Did you know that water left in the kitchen sink for days on end will always develop an orange film? Always. Even if you haven't had a tomato based product in months.
That, in itself, is unappealing, but my mom had a habit of leaving the water in the sink, and then after four or five days demanding that I pull the plug. By the time I hit twelve I was beginning to find my voice and one day REFUSED to stick my hand in the cold orange water. So she relented and, in a huff, went and pulled the plug herself. I am so thankful to this day I stuck to my guns because she found herself in possession of one very dead mouse. She screamed, I laughed and resolved to always drain the sink.
My mom, well, she hasn't found another mouse.
Another absolute I decided as a youth was to always move wet laundry to the dryer immediately after the washing machine stopped. Why? Because two day wet laundry tends to smell with a funk that never really goes away. Eau de Mildew was my childhood perfume. "Why not just do your own laundry?" you ask. That's another story for another time, and stop being so judgy, man!
Another thing we don't do - nothing is ever allowed "to soak." Soaking is Mom-ese for "hope it cleans and puts itself away." If it didn't clean and put itself away she would hide it in the oven and forget about it until we had to bake something. As a consequence I always check the oven before I turn it on. It was a superfluous habit until Mr. D started his cheesecake baking career and would occasionally forget to remove the water filled cookie sheets (water baths).
I won't eat rice in milk with cinnamon and sugar every again. I ate more than my share as a kid. We kept the rice industry in business through the 80's.
I never leave my sewing notion laying around or stabbed into the furniture because "next time I need it I'll know where to find it." She never found them, but I did. I can't tell you how many sewing needles I stepped on. The plus? There was always thread hanging from the eye, so I had a way to pull it out.
Tupperware were the only dishes we could count on. My mom had a rough time in the 90's and took it out on the dinnerware. We were color coded. My set was pink. Now, I've never used dish-breaking to quell my frustration, but even dishes broken on accident are a pill to clean up so I tend to own dishes that are impossible to break.
Then there was the leaving me on the side of the road.
One she'll be able to look back and laugh. I know I do.
However it goes her career as my mother good, bad or indifferent has shaped who I am as a woman, a wife and a mother myself and I think I'm pretty awesome. Even if it's only me who believes it.
I was talking to my mother the other day and she agreed that she must have done something right; she kept me alive, fed me, clothed me, and she didn't leave me on the side of the road...for very long.
Her words and true story. I watched the tail lights of the van disappear many times as a kid. So much so that it didn't even phase me. I always wore shoes and developed an amazing sense of direction. I could find my way home without breadcrumbs or a map.
Actually, the four kids all wore shoes at all times because in our indigent state we ran out of gas a lot. Well, we were poor and my mom really hated stopping for gas.
So I wanted to share a few things I learned as a result of my mother mothering me.
I never under any circumstances ever leave water in the sink after I've washed the dishes. In fact, as soon as the dishes are washed, I wring out the sponge, pull the plunge, rinse out the sink and wipe it down. That is, I did those things before my children took over dish duty, and it is the gold standard because the first time I found cold water in the sink I raised such a stink they've never forgotten it.
Now you may be thinking, "of course you do the dishes that way, it's common sense." Yes. Common sense, but the reason I make sure it's done that way is because my mother was a serial leave-water-in-the-sink-er. Did you know that water left in the kitchen sink for days on end will always develop an orange film? Always. Even if you haven't had a tomato based product in months.
That, in itself, is unappealing, but my mom had a habit of leaving the water in the sink, and then after four or five days demanding that I pull the plug. By the time I hit twelve I was beginning to find my voice and one day REFUSED to stick my hand in the cold orange water. So she relented and, in a huff, went and pulled the plug herself. I am so thankful to this day I stuck to my guns because she found herself in possession of one very dead mouse. She screamed, I laughed and resolved to always drain the sink.
My mom, well, she hasn't found another mouse.
Another absolute I decided as a youth was to always move wet laundry to the dryer immediately after the washing machine stopped. Why? Because two day wet laundry tends to smell with a funk that never really goes away. Eau de Mildew was my childhood perfume. "Why not just do your own laundry?" you ask. That's another story for another time, and stop being so judgy, man!
Another thing we don't do - nothing is ever allowed "to soak." Soaking is Mom-ese for "hope it cleans and puts itself away." If it didn't clean and put itself away she would hide it in the oven and forget about it until we had to bake something. As a consequence I always check the oven before I turn it on. It was a superfluous habit until Mr. D started his cheesecake baking career and would occasionally forget to remove the water filled cookie sheets (water baths).
I won't eat rice in milk with cinnamon and sugar every again. I ate more than my share as a kid. We kept the rice industry in business through the 80's.
I never leave my sewing notion laying around or stabbed into the furniture because "next time I need it I'll know where to find it." She never found them, but I did. I can't tell you how many sewing needles I stepped on. The plus? There was always thread hanging from the eye, so I had a way to pull it out.
Tupperware were the only dishes we could count on. My mom had a rough time in the 90's and took it out on the dinnerware. We were color coded. My set was pink. Now, I've never used dish-breaking to quell my frustration, but even dishes broken on accident are a pill to clean up so I tend to own dishes that are impossible to break.
Then there was the leaving me on the side of the road.
One she'll be able to look back and laugh. I know I do.
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