Spend at least one
Mother's Day with your respective mothers before you decide on marriage.
If a man gives his mother a gift certificate for a flu shot, dump him.
My kids always
perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the
groceries are unloaded from the car.
Making coffee has
become the great compromise of the decade. It's the only thing "real"
men do that doesn't seem to threaten their masculinity. To women, it's
on the same domestic entry level as putting the spring back into the
toilet-tissue holder or taking a chicken out of the freezer to thaw.
I don't know why no one
ever thought to paste a label on the toilet-tissue spindle giving 1-2-3
directions for replacing the tissue on it. Then everyone in the house
would know what Mama knows.
Giving birth is little
more than a set of muscular contractions granting passage of a child.
Then the mother is born.
Housework is a
treadmill from futility to oblivion with stop offs at tedium and counter
productivity.
There's a territorial
ritual to an aerobics class. I entered a class for the first time a few
years ago and ended up where no one wanted to be...in the front row next
to the mirror. It was three years before I could work my way to the back
row.
How come anything you
buy will go on sale next week?
Most women put off
entertaining until the kids are grown.
I have never gone to
the bathroom in my life that a small voice on the other side of the door
hasn't whined, "Are you saving the bananas for anything?"
Some say our national
pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossip.
Graduation day is tough
for adults. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come home as
contemporaries. After twenty-two years of child-rearing, they are
unemployed.
Marriage has no
guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car
battery.
There is nothing more
miserable in the world than to arrive in paradise and look like your
passport photo.
Youngsters of the age
of two and three are endowed with extraordinary strength. They can lift
a dog twice their own weight and dump him into the bathtub.
Getting out of the
hospital is a lot like resigning from a book club. You're not out of it
until the computer SAYS you're out of it.
Why is it when you want
a nice souvenir, you find a great shell in a gift shop, but some yo-yo
has affixed a ten-cent thermometer to it?
Kids have little
computer bodies with disks that store information. They remember who had
to do the dishes the last time you had spaghetti, who lost the knob off
the Tv set six years ago, who got punished for teasing the dog when he
wasn't teasing the dog and who had to wear girls boots the last time it
snowed.
Who, in their infinite
wisdom, decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a
mother.
People shop for a
bathing suit with more care than they do a husband or wife. The rules
are the same. Look for something you'll feel comfortable wearing. Allow
for room to grow.
No self-respecting
mother would run out of intimidations on the eve of a major holiday.
On vacations: We hit
the sunny beaches where we occupy ourselves keeping the sun off our
skin, the saltwater off our bodies and the sand out of our belongings.
Mother's words of
wisdom: "Answer me! Don't talk with food in your mouth!"
All of us have moments
in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with
white carpet is one of them.
Most children's first
words are "Mama" or "Daddy." Mine were, "Do I have to use my own money?"
Sometimes I can't
figure designers out. It's as if they flunked human anatomy.
I remember buying a set
of black plastic dishes once, after I saw an ad on television where they
actually put a blowtorch to them and they emerged unscathed. Exactly one
week after I bought them, one of the kids brought a dinner plate to me
with a large crack in it. When I asked what happened to it, he said it
hit a tree. I don't want to talk about it.
My theory on housework
is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch on fire or block the
refrigerator door, let it be. No one cares. Why should you?
Before you try to keep
up with the Joneses, be sure they're not trying to keep up with you.
Have you any idea how
many children it takes to turn off one light in the kitchen? Three. It
takes one to say, "What light?" and two more to say, "I didn't turn it
on."
Onion rings in the car
cushions do not improve with time.
Everyone is guilty at
one time or another of throwing out questions that beg to be ignored,
but mothers seem to have a market on the supply. "Do you want a spanking
or do you want to go to bed?" Don't you want to save some of the pizza
for your brother?" Wasn't there any change?"
I never leaf through a
copy of National Geographic without realizing how lucky we are to live
in a society where it is traditional to wear clothes.
The age of your
children is a key factor in how quickly you a re served in a restaurant.
We once had a waiter in Canada who said, "Could I get you your check?"
and we answered, "How about the menu first?"
Mothers have to
remember what food each child likes or dislikes, which one is allergic
to penicillin and hamster fur, who gets carsick and who isn't kidding
when he stands outside the bathroom door and tells you what's going to
happen if he doesn't get in right away. It's tough. If they all have the
same hair color they tend to run together.
When your mother asks,
"Do you want a piece of advice?" it's a mere formality. It doesn't
matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.
No one ever died from
sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after
their children do it because there's a wrinkle in the spread or the
blanket is on crooked. This is sick.
When mothers talk about
the depression of the empty nest, they're not mourning the passing of
all those wet towels on the floor, or the music that numbs your teeth,
or even the bottle of capless shampoo dribbling down the shower drain.
They're upset because they've gone from supervisor of a child's life to
a spectator. It's like being the vice president of the United States.
Christmas Shopping:
Wouldn't it be wonderful to find one gift that you didn't have to dust,
that had to be used right away, that was practical, fit everyone, was
personal and would be remembered for a long time? I penciled in "Gift
certificate for a flu shot."
"Choose
you this day
whom ye will
serve
but for me and
my
house we will
serve the Lord "![[FromTheEast.jpg]](../_borders/FromTheEast.jpg)
