Mothers. A Week Late (I was "busy")

I was reading one of my favorite blogs today and it made me think about my mom.

My mom is alive and well, lives in my basement even. I know numerous people who would be beyond grateful to be able to say that.

I can't imagine a time when that statement will make happy or grateful or anything positive.

I've been trying to recall my best memory of my mother. It is a very, very hard mental exercise for me. I spent most of my childhood pretty much on my own. There wasn't a lot of supervision or guidance or attention. I can tell you bad memories ... there are lots of those and maybe I dwell on them too much. I do dwell on them too much. But here is one moment when I felt happy with my mother.

I was about seven or eight. She had been up late reading the book version of the movie Willow, which my family had seen previews for and were excited to see. My dad worked graveyard and wasn't home. My parents slept in separate twin beds in the unfinished attic (weird, huh) and usually us kids would get yelled at to go back to bed if we tried to sleep upstairs, even in dad's empty bed. That was really hard because mom had shared a queen size bed with me and my brother every night for about 5 years prior (not sure exactly why it was that way or why it suddenly changed).

I had a hard time sleeping, all my childhood and adolescence. Terrible insomnia. I would say someone should have medicated me, but I'm fine now. So, as usual, I couldn't sleep and I decided to take a gamble and see if maybe, just maybe, mom would comfort me rather than send me away to cry myself to sleep*.

For whatever reason, that night, she let me crawl in bed with her. I did the thing kids who need more attention do: I started talking to her. I asked her a million questions. About her life and childhood. About meeting my father. About my childhood. Finally, about the book she was reading. She talked about the plot and characters until I fell asleep.

That is one of the few good memories I have of my mom.

I was reading another one of my favorite blogs this past week. It was the Mother's Day edition. One post card really effected me.

When Greg is getting frustrated with me, sometimes he'll say I'm acting like my mother. Nothing NOTHING insults me more.

I don't want my children to feel that way about me. It is one of my greatest fears. I want my children, most especially my beautiful amazing daughter, to feel this way instead:

(picture from postsecret)

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*It is awfully annoying when kids get up at night. But I'm gonna hug them and sweetly put them back to bed from now on. No more threats and spanks for getting up ever. Even after the 200th time. I know: I'm totally jinxing myself for bedtime tonight. I don't care. They say a child replays the last thing they hear/experience over and over as they fall asleep.

What do we want that child to be replaying??

What will be most helpful for them to get comfy and sleep? "Dammit! If you get up one more time, so help me, I am going to beat the living crap out of you! Do you Understand?STAY!" or "I love you sweetheart. Goodnight. Happy Dreams!"