The Mother I Was and The Mother I Have Become

Have you ever heard the Indian fable about the seven blind mice and the elephant? Each of the mice explored a different part of the elephant and they each came away with a different description of the elephant. There was a moral to the story is a bit different than the moral to the story I want to tell today but the idea is somewhat the same. Ironically I have seven children in my story. I play the part of the elephant. Flattering, I know. 

All seven of my children would identify me as their mother. However, I am really not the same person to each one of them at all. If they were each asked to think back to their youngest memories and on into their elementary school years, they would have very different descriptions of their mother, yet they all had the same one. And if they were asked to describe the roles I play in their lives today, being all different ages, the descriptions would be vastly different.

My oldest four kids have memories of an energetic young mom who played kickball in the front yard, had Nerf gun wars, and could sit crossed-legged on the floor to dress a Barbie or build with Legos. They will remember a rule about movies. We only had G rated movies, no others were allowed. Their mom always seemed to have a toddler on her hip, and a baby on the way. She was always sleep-deprived and often grouchy because of it. The oldest would tell you that mom was strict and wanted to be obeyed immediately.  A clean house was very important to their mom and she cooked six nights a week.

The younger kids would probably listen to those stories and wonder just where their brothers and sisters had lived back then. These kids have never seen their mom kick a playground ball across the yard and run bases, shoot a Nerf gun, or sit cross-legged on the floor. The younger kids know an older mom who has issues with arthritis and moves pretty slow. They will remember a lot of nights when supper came from a can, a box, or a drive-thru window. And they will remember being able to watch a few PG rated movies while they were still in grade school. (Scandalous, I know.) Having an older mom is not the worst thing that could happen to a kid though. The younger kids will definitely remember a more patient mom who did not become stressed when the house was not clean or the kids did not obey the first time. Sure, I am the same person but… not really.

To two of my children I was a tutor and helped them with many of their assignments while the other kids will have little memory at all of mom sitting with them to do homework. It was not necessary. They managed quite well without help. Some of the kids loved to read and loved to be read to. Those children will recall lying in mom’s bed while she laughed hysterically at what Junie B Jones had just done. One of the boys was passionate about dinosaurs and he will remember that we spent a whole lot of time discussing those great beasts and trying to pronounce their names correctly. One of the girls was/is passionate about cows and tractors and we have spent many hours pouring over fun facts about farming and sitting at the cattle auction just for her pleasure.

The oldest children and the youngest two will remember a mom who volunteered in their classrooms in the primary grades and was often at the classroom parties. The children in the middle will not have those memories. The girls will remember a lot more play dates than the boys will as they played so quietly and did not require me to repair anything at the end of the day. The boys could definitely holler “discrimination” about this.

Five of the kids played baseball or softball in the summers when they were young and will have a picture in their mind of a mom in a lawn chair at practices, games, and tournaments. Two of the children will never associate their mother with a ball field at all. The oldest children will remember their mother having chickens that they had to help feed but not the younger ones. The older children will remember their mom taking them to swimming lessons but the younger children will remember a mom that taught them to swim in the pool we built in the backyard. Two of these kids might remember their mother with a joystick in her hand trying to learn to play video games. The rest of the children would say their mother had probably never held a joystick in her life. A couple of the children would remember a day their mother brought home eight different brands of hotdogs so they could have a blind taste test to settle a very important debate. Only one of the kids will have a memory of getting a pony on their birthday. That girl’s mom really came through for her!

All seven children will have some very similar memories. They will all be able to hear my voice in their mind, singing from the rocking chair. They will all remember their mom as their first Bible class teacher. They will all remember a mom who was crazy in love with their daddy.

I gave all seven children a good childhood but they did not all have the same childhood and I am learning to be okay with that. Not all my children had the same opportunity nor will they have all the same memories and has to be okay. I cannot recreate the older children’s childhood for the younger children, nor can I turn back the clock to make sure the older kids get every experience the younger children have now. Recently one of my oldest children returned home for a visit. He saw Lucky Charms in the pantry and did a double take. My rule for a lot of years was that I would not buy chocolate cereal or cereal containing marshmallows. He looked at me and said, “Mom. You’ve changed.” I said, “Yes. I have.”

I usually blog about autism or FAS but occasionally I like to talk about something else. If you liked this post then you might find the following to your liking as well. What Does A Good Mother Say?

Sometimes Moms Like to Remember: Shopping Trips

It has occurred to me a few times lately upon seeing large families out doing their shopping, what I must have looked like when I took five, six or seven kids with me to a store.  There were curious stares and often comments like, “Are they all yours?” and “You certainly have your hands full.”  Coming from a fairly large family myself (I am one of six children), and having planned to have at least five or six children, our “crowd” just did not look that large to me.  They were spaced about two to three years apart and each baby was welcomed whole-heartedly. I really loved being surrounded by my kids. So sometimes when I see a young mother pushing a cart with a baby seat and a toddler in the cart and two or three (or more) children trailing along behind, I get a little nostalgic. Sometimes a mom likes to remember...

These days when I go to buy groceries, I do not have a shopping cart full of diapers, baby food, animal crackers, or jars of peanut butter or jelly.  I don’t have to make dozens of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches each week anymore. We used to go through a jar of grape jam every week.  And that reminds me: One of my favorite stories to tell is about a time when my second child was four or five years old.  It was a Thursday.  I know that because I always did my grocery shopping on Thursday mornings back then. We were at the grocery store and she loved to “help.” The truth is I probably needed her help because I was most likely VERY pregnant, making it hard to bend over, or pushing a cart with one hand and holding a baby with the other.  My babies never made it all the way through a shopping trip without wailing to be held and who can think straight with a hysterical baby right in front of their face?  Not me. So, I became very good at pushing a cart with one hand.  Back to that Thursday morning, so long ago… grape jam still came in glass jars and it was on the bottom shelf. My little helper followed my directions and picked up a jar of jam but dropped it on that very hard floor. The result was a purple, sticky mess with lots of glass pieces scattered around it. I found a clerk who made the customary announcement, “Cleanup on aisle five.” Soon, a young man with a broom and a mop came to the rescue.  I apologized profusely and he was very forgiving.  Fast forward to one week later.  My little darling again picked up a jar of jam, and that slippery jar ended up just like the one from the Thursday before. So, I found a clerk, heard the intercom call for a cleanup on aisle five, and we waited on the nice young man with the broom and the mop.  I was embarrassed and very apologetic as I had been the week before.  The man looked at the mess then looked at me. He spoke two sentences to me. He said, “Could you start coming in on Tuesdays?  That’s my day off.” It wasn’t long after that and jam started coming in plastic containers.  And now you know the reason for that! Ha. Sometimes a mother has to laugh off life's embarrassing little moments.

I have a lot of funny shopping stories.  Once, when we got to our shopping destination, I had a toddler fall out of the van. Head first.  I had an infant in a car seat balanced on my left hip and only one hand free and a split second to prevent my child from landing in the parking lot on her face.  I grabbed her by the ankle as she tumbled out and I jerked up.  And there I stood… with a baby seat on my left hip and a little girl (in a dress) dangling upside down from my right hand above a hot parking lot. THAT was a hard situation to resolve.  Sometimes a mom really does need more than two hands. 

Once Isaac was born, we almost never made it through a trip to any store without at least one person stopping us to ooh and aah over his beautiful eyes. Isaac has light blue eyes with a dark blue ring around the outside. Women often wanted to admire his eyes.  (They still do.) Around age three, Isaac had taken all of it he could handle. If a lady approached him he’d hide his face. If someone commented on his eyes, he would cry. Those poor ladies felt so badly for terrorizing a preschooler! I considered putting a paper bag over the kid’s head to hide those gorgeous eyes for a few years there. Sometimes mothers have to take drastic measures.

One of the stories I have told the most over the years is about the time my oldest son had a major meltdown in a fabric store. He was about four or five and at the time wanted to be a cowboy when he grew up. He had a gun belt, a toy rifle, a cowboy hat, and a spring horse he called, “Trigger.”  He loved to watch “Davy Crocket” and other movies in which the hero fought savages. We live near a town that is both the home of a state university and a small Indian University. The dramatic meltdown occurred when we were in a fabric store and a couple of men walked by. The men were very tan with brown eyes and long black hair, obviously Native American. My boy became hysterical, screaming, and scrambling to hide behind me.  He was shrieking, “Hide! They will kill us! They will get their bows and arrows and kill us!”  Luckily, the men found it amusing and were not offended as I offered them my excuses and regrets. Being a mother is sometimes very humbling. 

I normally blog about autism and this post would not be complete without memories of shopping with a young Tate. When Tate was around eighteen months old he had some very unusual behaviors. I did not yet know that these behaviors meant there was an autism diagnosis in his future. I only knew that he was unique and very sensitive to many things that he should have been able to tolerate and he was very aware of some things that he should not have known at all. It was one of the most curious things I had ever experienced but when we shopped we could NOT walk down the aisle that contained cookies or we paid for it. Keep in mind he was the sixth child. I had experienced tantrums in stores before. I had experienced scared children before. I had experienced children who were in pain before. If Tate caught sight of a package of cookies or if he HEARD the word cookie then he went from docile to inconsolable and frantic. There was no way around it.  I tried my best to do my shopping without Tate along for quite a while.  It is very hard to avoid all signs of cookies when you are in a grocery store.  Another thing Tate did in the stores began about age two.  He could “read” the product names by singing their jingles to me or quoting their commercial to me as we wandered through the store.  When we saw the Charmin toilet tissue he would say, “Less is more.”  When we walked past the cereals he rattled off jingles and advertising slogans one after another. I could hold up a tub of margarine and he could tell me if it was Blue Bonnet or Parkay. He was not exactly reading but he had all the products matched to their commercials. He could memorize commercials, picture books, songs, or movie dialogue after just hearing it a couple of times IF he was interested in it.  He still can but only IF it is something that appeals to him.  He cannot/will not memorize math facts quickly, the name of states, or anything useful that we would like for him to retain.  It is maddening the way his brain works! Mothers sometimes have to accept what they cannot change.

I have so many precious memories of my little ones. My kids continue to bring me joy as they grow but I will always miss them as babies too.  Things were often a blur when I had so many little ones all at once but I am able to remember many of the special things they did and I tried to write some of them down in their baby books too.  I have many more memories to share in the future. If you are a mother, jot down the embarrassing moments, the things that make you smile and the things that are unique about your child.  Someday you will be very glad you did it because sometimes Moms like to remember.