HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! AND MOST OF ALL, THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR MISTAKES.

Being a mother is a lot of hard work.  It is so much more than just starting your little ones out in the right direction, and then taking care of all their bumps and bruises, both physically and emotionally, along the way.  I think, in fact, that is probably the easiest part.  The hard stuff starts when you have to let go of them.  When you have to stand aside, as they go off in their OWN direction, even if you're worried that it might be the wrong one.  You know in your heart, that you won't always be around to take care of those bumps and bruises; the ones that you are afraid they are going to end up with, on that particular path.  So all of us, in our own way, strive to give our children the tools, for the "picking yourself back up and dusting yourself off" parts of life, and then just hold our collective breaths and watch our babies go.  It's brutal, but, hopefully, we know they are going to be okay in the end....even if we find ourselves humming the lyrics from Cat Stevens', "Wild World" all the time we are watching them from the distance.

You know I've seen a lot of what the world can do
And it's breakin' my heart in two
Because I never wanna see you a sad girl
Don't be a bad girl
But if you wanna leave, take good care
I hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
But just remember there's a lot of bad and beware.

The two best tools my own mother gave me, and the ones that I hope that I, too, passed on to my children are a sense of humor, and the gift of knowing all about the mistakes that their mother made in life.  It is so easy as a parent to share all of our triumphs and successes, and it is human nature to be little more reticent about all of our own bumps and bruises that we have endured along the way... those are embarrassing.  Those mistakes my mother made though, along with the sense of humor that she viewed them with, are the very things  that sustained me the most during my own times of hardship.  Knowing, that even my mom, a woman that I hold in  the highest regard, could, occasionally, be pretty darn dumb, yet still laugh about it later, provided me with the courage to do the same.  It was in those moments, after I had run as fast as I could, directly into a pile of stupidity, that her honesty about her own mistakes gave me the strength to go on again.  I never doubted for a minute that my mother was a success; that was a given.  The thing I was the most grateful for though, was knowing that she wasn't ALWAYS a success, and, that not being one every time, did nothing to diminish the way I felt about her.  I hope I have given the same gifts to my own daughters.  In fact, I believe I have been even MORE generous than my own mother, in providing them with a multitude of mistakes and missteps that I, myself, have made along the journey. Frankly, I  have given them a veritable treasure trove of cautionary tales from which to draw upon, as well as to laugh about.  Hopefully now, when they are running into their own roadblocks in life they won't get too discouraged.  They can think of their mother and say, "You know, I remember something stupid like this that my mother did, and I still loved her.  In fact, we laughed together about it....I guess I will make it through this, after all."
Happy Mother's Day everyone!  May God Bless each of you, and all of your beautiful families!  And, on behalf of children everywhere, thank you for all of your mistakes!

"BRING TWO OF EVERY SORT OF ANIMAL"... but we just brought our two dogs and two cats.

A few days ago I went down into our basement, and as I walked across the carpeted floor I noticed a very distinct "squishing" sound.  Much to my dismay, I realized that part of our basement was flooded.  Puzzled, I checked our ceiling tiles to see if water was leaking from them.  This may seem odd to city folks, but shortly after we moved out to Romeo we did suffer a pretty bad leak from our ceiling.  We discovered that chipmunks had somehow gotten into our basement, and apparently, as one of our neighbors explained to us, they became thirsty and needed  water; to accomplish this they ate through some plastic water lines in the ceiling that were used in connection with our water softening system. As a result, our ceiling tiles became saturated with water, and began raining on our carpet.  Since chipmunks causing it to rain in the basement was a new concept to me this incident made an indelible impression on me.  In fact, because of this negative conditioning, I ALWAYS check the ceiling whenever someone's floor is flooded. (Not everyone shares my wealth of knowledge in this area, and, therefore, may be unaware that chipmunks could be to blame.)
This time, however, the source of our problem was a broken sump pump, so Dave made a midnight run to the closest Meijer store, a mere 14 mile journey, round-trip, and bought a new one.  He came home with a top of the line sump pump; a sump pump so impressive that it could probably drain Lake Huron, if needed.  He regaled me with information about all of its features and functions, and, sadly, I found myself listening with great interest.  I didn't even mind the cost, because, now that I live in Romeo, a sump pump is far more important to me than all those frivolous things I used to spend my money on, like clothes or perfume.  Dave installed our shiny new sump pump, and the next day I went out and rented a "Rug Doctor" and began hours of carpet cleaning.  Following our considerable efforts, made even harder since we are both somewhat broken, we conquered our flood, along with the help of a multitude of fans, and electric heaters.  We returned our "Rug Doctor," and went home; secure in the knowledge that we were now the proud owners of the best, damn sump pump in all of Romeo, as well as the driest basement.   Our happiness lasted for about all of two days.
I had fallen asleep on the couch sitting upright and uncomfortably, due to the fact that we were having a torrential downpour, accompanied by thunder and lightning.  The reason for my discomfort was because whenever there is thunder and lightning my pups, Teddy and Scarlett, are filled with anxiety and therefore must sit on, or in close proximity to, a human's lap for the duration of the storm. This time period could be up to and including all of eternity, if necessary. I woke up, pups still on my lap, to hear Dave informing me that our power had gone out during the night.  We both had appointments that morning, so we left the house in the hopes that our power would be restored by the time we returned.  It was....but not before our basement had flooded again.  Even the best damn sump pump in all of Romeo is ineffective, if one has no electricity with which to run it.
This time, due to the aforementioned torrential downpour, we had much more water.  There was water in every carpeted closet, carpeted cupboard floor, and all manner of nook and cranny.  Unfortunately, these were all the very places that I used to conceal a plethora of messy boxes and crates, so as to fool my guests when they come over, into believing that I am an exceptional housekeeper.  Clearly, I am not.  Once again, we rented a "Rug Doctor" but this time we needed to sort through 29 years of accumulated items; those items that are SO IMPORTANT that you absolutely cannot throw them out... but that you never actually look at again, once they are hidden in a closet.  Thus began the real cleaning.  Together Dave and I soldiered on, undaunted by the magnitude of our undertaking.
"Be ruthless," I told Dave. "Don't be afraid to throw anything out if it is wet, or if you can't figure out what it is!"  I felt empowered by my own words, and began throwing out bag after bag of unnecessary items.  Dave wandered over, and glanced at some of the items.
"Hey, isn't that the Bunn coffee maker that I bought you?  That cost a lot of money. Why are you throwing that out?"
"It doesn't work right, and Barb bought me the most awesome coffeemaker known to man.  I haven't a clue as to why I didn't throw this old one out to begin with."
"Okay, but what about this thing?  What is it, and why are we throwing it out?"  Dave asked again, holding up the object.
"Oh," I answered. "That is a food processor.  You gave it to me about 25 years ago I think, but I have never used it.  I considered trying to use it a few months back, but I couldn't figure out how it worked.  I am pretty sure important parts of it are missing...like someone who wants to process foods. Frankly Dave, it wasn't the best present for me.  Maybe you thought it would make me a better cook, like my sister, but, obviously, you were mistaken. It would have been much better to give it to her, and then ask her to invite us over for dinner.  I wish I would have thought of that, but it's too late now.  It has been flooded on, in addition to collecting dust for 25 years, and today it's going to go."
Dave frowned, and DID NOT put the offending food processor in the garbage. I waited patiently for him to become distracted, and then put it in myself.  I felt the weight of the food processing world, lifting from my shoulders!!
Together we forged on, puzzling over parts and items that we had saved for a variety of unknown reasons, and that now, after these many years had passed, left us totally baffled, as to their purpose. Out they all went...so many, in fact, that we may have to borrow garbage cans from neighbors to contain them all.

Tomorrow, we will begin again, but in the end, it's all good.  When we are through we will have both the cleanest basement in all of Romeo, as well as the best damn sump pump in town!!   (AND, I finally got rid of that annoying, food processor...sigh, 29 years of terrible cooking and we're still married!  It's got to be love. )