Our very last Mommy Diary. Thank you to everyone who submitted, it is so important that we share our stories, I believe we have so much to learn from each other.
As for today, let's end with something from my mom. I give her a hard time and don't tell her enough how much she is appreciated, that is for sure. My mom is sharing today and I must say this is the post I was most looking forward to. I love and respect my mom for being such a devoted mom over the years.
I was a very young bride.
17 years old. Yup, my mom had to
sign the marriage license for me. Just
for the record, I was a high school graduate and almost as mature as most brides these days! I was 21 when Deena was
born, but coming from a large family I did have lots of childcare
experience. These were the days of cloth
diapers that required special folding and sharp pins – most babies got jabbed a
few times for sure so I wasn’t surprised to do this myself to all my babies!
But poor Deena did suffer from my new-momness and also my
terrible klutziness that exists to this day.
Some of the worst events? Well
when she was about 9 months old, I was bouncing her while she was sitting on my
shoulders and when I tried to slide her off, I kind of lost grip of her and
dropped her about 3 feet to the floor, knocking her wind out! That was pretty
scary! Notice I didn’t say I dropped her
on her head. Then another time when we
were building our new house (which was so exciting) – we had let Deena roll
around in her walker (no longer an approved baby item) and forgot to block off
the stairway and down she rolled!
Luckily again, no head trauma!
But one of my worst mishaps happened on a grocery shopping trip. I had successfully completed the shopping with
about 1 year old Deena in tow, got the groceries put into the supercab truck
which we were driving at the time, buckled Deena into her carseat, and then as
I attempted to push the cart away from the truck, that big heavy truck door
swung shut – and my baby was locked in there because I had left the keys in the
truck!! What panic! No cel phones in those days, no one near by
to help me, so my only option was to dash back into Safeway, hope my baby would
not start wailing and plead assistance from the clerks to phone my husband Don
and get him to come and unlock the door!
Thank goodness P.A. is a small city and it didn’t take him long to fly
downtown and rescue us! I felt like the
world’s worst mother – ever. And dear
little Deena just sat there in her carseat calm as can be through the whole
event. I did learn from that experience
that baby stays with you till you are all done the other stuff!
If I am trying to remember a mommy victory from when the
kids were small – well good luck with that one.
You always think that you are going to remember every event of your
life, every person who passed through it.
Think again. It just does not
work out that way. Fortunately, I
blogged the old-fashioned way - in a written journal every day. Now as I search for events in those old
books, sometimes it baffles me how you can totally forget things that occurred
or people who were a part of your life.
I will read something to Don and say do you remember this? Or say to him, do you remember who Michelle
was, apparently I visited her in the hospital with her new baby girl? Sometimes neither of us can recall the
memory! You ladies will be glad in the
future if you are writing these times of your lives down because they do help to
bring back to mind things that are long forgotten! So my mommy victory? Raising three terrific kids in a world where
they can easily be led astray. I’m
grateful that the choices we made for them in family, education, faith, the
arts and sports have made them the well-rounded adults they are today!
This is the thing about the mommy brain.
It doesn’t turn off when your kids reach adulthood. You will still pine for their happiness,
their health, their safety.
You will slip up and tell them what or how they should be
doing something and they will give you the evil eye and then you remember, oh
yeah, they’re grown-up now, guess they can figure that out themselves. This is a difficult thing to turn off.
So when your mom offers unsolicited advice or is overly
protective, you can let it in one ear and out the other if you like; just
remember, the tables turn too soon!
You can read Mom's previous Mommy Diary post here
4 comments
It is so awesome that you wrote in a journal as your kids were growing up, Marlene! My grandma journals as well, and I know that those books have solved many arguments!
ReplyDeleteLove this, your mom seems so sweet and such a great mom! Great advice!
ReplyDeleteAwww...so happy to hear from your mom today! She's obviously a great mom because....you :)! Thanks for sharing all the mommy diaries - such a great idea and I enjoyed it so much.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your sharing your mom with us!
ReplyDeleteHave a lovely day!