Mommy Deal!

Lets face it, in the early parts of our lives, we spend most of our days blaming our mothers for not letting us do something we wanted to do.   Then we spend the later parts of our lives, blaming them for everything that went wrong.    At the ripe old age of thirty- whatever, I am still pissed my mother wouldn't let me wear my high top converse sneakers to girl scouts , instead  forcing me  to wear "lady" sandals, forever setting in motion an unhealthy obsession with shoes...(and girl scout cookies) I still bring it up, every chance I get.  


    As kids, my sister and I were particularly good at  plotting the demise of our mothers plans for dinner. Over and over again we bitched about what it was she was cooking.  We  plotted everything from training the dog to attack when she entered the kitchen, to just plain stealing all of her pots and pans. We rarely made it down the hallway before we were defeated.   Billowing smoke and curse words involving some recipe that had gone wrong would fly out of that kitchen like an Andy Petite pitch.  It was a war zone for a skinny 9 year old with no ammunition, and I never stood a chance.   Something was always on fire.  One of us kids was always assigned the job of wind maker under the smoke alarm, flapping our arms with a dish rag feverishly, making sure it didn't go off a million times and worry the neighbors.  


The smell of some poor cow who had given it's life, wafted around the dinner table ,all for some hamburger that looked like a meatball. Thank god for the hamburger buns as a KEY, or else some nights we weren't sure if we were waiting for spaghetti or ketchup.   It's probably why I am a vegetarian today  and my sister a perfectionist in the kitchen.  


In my mothers defense, it really wasn't her fault either. I'm sure she would blame her mother for her lack of culinary skills.  You see my mothers mother happened to think KFC was gourmet.  We often found unidentified objects floating in our Thanksgiving dinner, and I'm pretty sure I once saw my dad pull a shoe lace out of his pasta, and just tuck it into his pocket like it was no big deal.  It always made for a hilarious holiday and emergency stop to the drug store for Pepto Bismol on the way home.  


So here I am a mother myself, and although I'm skilled in the kitchen, I'm clueless about so many other things.  Petrified I'm screwing my son up already , desperate to ensure he's a decent human being, and possibly a classically trained musician, I have no idea if I'm doing it right.  This mother gig is pressure. I want a guarantee. I want to know that my son is gonna be amazing, and thank me for it ,in some fabulous speech he will make, while excepting his "best artist of the year" award, for writing a song about his mother.  


So I came up with a plan.  I sat down with my 19 month old today and I made him a deal.  While he splashed around in the bath tub, giddy with excitement over a new body part he had just discovered, I promised to never ever make him wear "lady" shoes he didn't like, IF he promised never to do anything illegal, always stay close to home, thank me in some kind of speech he will give one day, never blog about my mistakes or whatever blogging will become in the future,  and never tell daddy how much we really spend when we go shopping.  We high fived to seal the deal, and nosey nosey nosed! 

I think it's a pretty solid deal!