Dear 6th Grade Boys,
We, your mothers, want to remind you of a few very important life lessons. These are lessons that you just have to accept, so don’t argue with us (you won’t win anyway). This is just how it is, and the sooner you learn and accept the following, the easier your lives will be.
1.) Deodorant DOES NOT help stink that you already have! It’s as simple as right & wrong, up & down:
Soap is for stink you already have.
Deod is for stink you don’t want to get.
We simply can’t explain this anymore! So, every time you take a shower and rid yourself of your previous stink, you MUST reapply new deod as a stink-preventing measure! End of story!
2.) Wrinkly shirts make you look like you don’t care. And maybe you don’t. But like it or not, you’re now at the age when it will serve you well to at least act like you do!
3.) You have to wash your face! We don’t care if you don’t want to or you don’t like it. When you don’t, you get pimples. Yes, we mothers do love you enough to pop them…for 12 years now we’ve run the gamut of blood, puke, snot, & urine. Trust us, a little pimple poppin’ ain’t gonna scare us away! So you have a choice to make: us chasin’ you down with toner-laden cotton balls or you can take care of it yourselves.
4.) We’re not expecting you to be like some of those adorable, charming, melt-a-mother’s heart 12-year olds that we see on TV sometimes, but we do expect you to master and use 3 or 4 social phrases such as “nice to meet you”, “great to see you again”, “I _______ (play baseball, play the trumpet, am interested in U.S. History…) – thanks for asking.”, and “I’m fine, thank you. How are you?”
5.) Think something and know why you think it. Even if you don’t agree with your brilliant mothers on everything, take a stand and be able to defend it! We want you to be leaders, not followers.
6.) We’ve taught you manners. Could you at least use them sometimes so we know you “got it”? Whether you’re the President or simply invited to the White House someday (as we know you will be – you’re just that fabulous!), you’ll need to know which fork is for salad, which spoon is for dessert, and to chew with your mouths closed!
7.) We know you love bathroom words…words that describe bodily functions…words that gross a mother out. We know it, even though we don’t like or understand it. But there IS a time and place, for the love of Pete…and the dining room table at Grandma’s is not it!
8.) You are now at the age when you must take personal responsibility for your own faith, your relationship with Jesus Christ. We’ve tried our best. We’ve taught you right. We’ve told you how it is. We’ve taken you to church. We hope you understand now that your actions and beliefs have consequences…eternal ones. Now it’s time for you to take the reigns. We want you to long outlive us, have decades of happy and productive lives. But if you die tomorrow, you’ll have to stand at the feet of Jesus and answer for yourselves. Be clear about what you believe…and if you’re not, talk to someone who knows biblical truth. We say this not to be harsh, but because we love you more than life itself. We know this is some heavy stuff, but our first and most important job is to love you. Our second is to tell it to you straight. We want you to spend your eternity in Heaven with Jesus…nothing matters more.
No matter how tall you grow, how much armpit hair you get, and how deep your voices become, you’ll always be our babies. Nothing you could ever do would change how much we love you…unconditionally…and for all time.
Love,
Your Mothers
Showing posts with label motherhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label motherhood. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Good Mom
One day recently we had a snow day. Well, actually it was a “bitter cold, sub-zero temp” day, but you get the idea.
I was psyched! Not only was it a day off of school for the boys, but for me as well. I had a to-do list a mile long and this day was like a freebie…a gift, given in the spoken name of “bitter cold”, but surely it was secretly straight to me from God in the name of “too much to do and not enough time to get it done”!
My list, as I mentioned, was l..oo..nnn…gggg…..
(and, I might add, unrealistic!)
It went something like this:
1. return calls
2. return emails
3. do laundry
4. take down the outside (dead!) greenery
5. straighten house
6. get cards ready to mail
7. organize office
8. go to Target
9. go to Post Office
10. go to grocery
But do you know what? I didn’t do a darn thing on that list that day! Not one last thing!
Instead I slept in (a gift straight from heaven!). And when I did wake up, I dozed off and on for an hour and a half while one of my boys snuggled next to me, playing his DS, and giving his commentary on the news as it aired. See, the boys are getting older and the days of snuggling are fleeting I know. When we finally did get our lazy hineys out of the bed, we lounged in our jammies, made a leisurely breakfast, watched 2 movies on TV, folded laundry (the little bit I could muster the energy to do) while we laughed and basically piddled the day away.
The truth is that I put my list second to my children by conscience choice. I am trying to strike what I consider a happy balance between my children thinking that they (and their dad) are the most important things in my life and realizing that the world does not revolve around them. This is quite a delicate balance to achieve! But now and then I want them to see that I dropped everything just to be with them, enjoying their company, and I hope they will look back on it twenty years from now with really fond memories.
While I do know that time is a gift from God, not to be squandered, I don’t view that that’s what I did on the day in question.
I see it like this: I got nothing done that the world would judge as productive. (Sorry Stephen Covey...no "first things first") In the world’s view maybe I didn’t spend my time well, but I know that I did invest my time well. And I invested it with such a high rate of return that it would send Wall Street guys runnin’! (So maybe it was "first things first" after all!)
So while I can cross nothing off of my list that was an errand or a household chore, I think I’ll add: #11. Good Mom… just so I can cross it off!
1. return calls
2. return emails
3. do laundry
4. take down the outside (dead!) greenery
5. straighten house
6. get cards ready to mail
7. organize office
8. go to Target
9. go to Post Office
10.go to grocery
11. be a good mom
Question: When have you dropped everything for the sake of your kids? How did it make you, and them, feel?
I was psyched! Not only was it a day off of school for the boys, but for me as well. I had a to-do list a mile long and this day was like a freebie…a gift, given in the spoken name of “bitter cold”, but surely it was secretly straight to me from God in the name of “too much to do and not enough time to get it done”!
My list, as I mentioned, was l..oo..nnn…gggg…..
(and, I might add, unrealistic!)
It went something like this:
1. return calls
2. return emails
3. do laundry
4. take down the outside (dead!) greenery
5. straighten house
6. get cards ready to mail
7. organize office
8. go to Target
9. go to Post Office
10. go to grocery
But do you know what? I didn’t do a darn thing on that list that day! Not one last thing!
Instead I slept in (a gift straight from heaven!). And when I did wake up, I dozed off and on for an hour and a half while one of my boys snuggled next to me, playing his DS, and giving his commentary on the news as it aired. See, the boys are getting older and the days of snuggling are fleeting I know. When we finally did get our lazy hineys out of the bed, we lounged in our jammies, made a leisurely breakfast, watched 2 movies on TV, folded laundry (the little bit I could muster the energy to do) while we laughed and basically piddled the day away.
The truth is that I put my list second to my children by conscience choice. I am trying to strike what I consider a happy balance between my children thinking that they (and their dad) are the most important things in my life and realizing that the world does not revolve around them. This is quite a delicate balance to achieve! But now and then I want them to see that I dropped everything just to be with them, enjoying their company, and I hope they will look back on it twenty years from now with really fond memories.
While I do know that time is a gift from God, not to be squandered, I don’t view that that’s what I did on the day in question.
I see it like this: I got nothing done that the world would judge as productive. (Sorry Stephen Covey...no "first things first") In the world’s view maybe I didn’t spend my time well, but I know that I did invest my time well. And I invested it with such a high rate of return that it would send Wall Street guys runnin’! (So maybe it was "first things first" after all!)
So while I can cross nothing off of my list that was an errand or a household chore, I think I’ll add: #11. Good Mom… just so I can cross it off!
1. return calls
2. return emails
3. do laundry
4. take down the outside (dead!) greenery
5. straighten house
6. get cards ready to mail
7. organize office
8. go to Target
9. go to Post Office
10.go to grocery
11. be a good mom
Question: When have you dropped everything for the sake of your kids? How did it make you, and them, feel?
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