Many years ago my Aunt Denise, my mom's older sister, showed me this newspaper clipping. It is an article about food samples in the marketplace. Along with the article was this picture of my mom with three of us kids crammed into the seat portion of a grocery cart. Did they make the seats bigger back then? I don't think so. My mom is smiling, but this has desperation written all over it!
Anyways, I had completely forgotten about it. Until recently when my Aunt sent it to my mom, and she shared it with my sisters and I. We got a kick out of it! My sister Brooke is next to me, with pig tails, and our brother Isaac is crammed in the front, most likely with his legs dangling through the leg holes.
I feel so much emotion when I look at this. My mom and I are super close. She is one of my best friends. We talk almost every day. Many of our conversations revolve around the joys, stresses, happiness and misery surrounding motherhood. She understands me, my job, my stresses, my sense of duty and my desires to be the best mom.
We are in completely different phases of motherhood right now. She is the mother to seven adults. I am a mother of 2 teenagers, 1 adolescent and 3 wild little boys. It is very comforting to know that she did this before me. I actually remember a lot of her experiences, from the perspective of child.
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| About the same time period of the newspaper article. We would rather climb on mom than play on the beach with dad. |
Sharing this motherhood gig with someone like her helps me get through the day to day. She can match or top each and every story/experience I share with her. For example, I tell her a story about how awful my son was during church, and then she retells one of my stories about the time when one of my brothers stood up on the pew, in the middle of the meeting, and started pretend shooting my dad....LOUDLY!
Or I call her crying and upset because I left my sons hand slammed shut in a door for about 10 minutes because I thought he was just throwing a tantrum. She then tells me about the time she did the same thing with my brother in the car door. She thought he was just throwing a fit on the way to the store, and she did her best to just block him out. She realized it when they got to the store. I felt a little better about my horrible misjudgment.
One of my favorites is when I call her on a rough day, and she says, "Well, I told you not to have any children." It always makes me laugh.
One thing is for sure. Thank heavens for carts big enough to have a two seats in the front!
Here are some Pinterest finds that I love. These are just perfect for my life right now.
