With Mother's Day coming up this weekend my news feed on Facebook has been flooded with all of the super sappy videos about what "Mom is to me".
The one that really got me was the Pandora Jewelry video...holy moly I cried like a baby! You can watch that video here . Try to not cry! I know that I know my mom well enough to be able to find her blind folded. I know the sound she makes when she is walking...so this video was extra precious because of that!
Rather than some sappy video I figured I would share a few of my funniest and favorite memories of my mom. Which is probably more fitting since she isn't an emotional, huger, sappy-lovey-dovey type of mom.
One of my first memories of my mom is of her eight or nine months pregnant with Johnnie. She drove a two door Cutlass and I remember watching her try to pry herself out of that car. If you knew my mom back then, you understand why that image was so funny to me!
It wasn't long after that I remember walking through the hospital with my Dad to go meet my brother for the first time. I remember telling her that I didn't want a brother...
After having Johnnie home for a few weeks I "supposedly" walked into the living room in the middle of the night while they were up with screaming Johnnie (Johnnie cried so much as a baby) and informed them that they needed to take that baby to Maw's. My poor mother...raising a diva child and a child who had chronic ear infections. That sounds fun :)
One of my next favorite memories of my mom is her trying to fix my hair when I was in elementary school. One morning she was trying to brush it and pull it up, I was obviously being dramatic and screaming "ouch" every time she tried to touch it. Next thing I know...WHACK...right on top of the head with the hair brush. Needless to say my dad ended up fixing my hair for a while...and he had zero sympathy when it came to tangles. Thanks to this experience I am not tender headed...HA..
I remember accidentally punching her in the nose one morning while she was trying to wake me up by tickling me...
I HATED the color red...and can't count how many fights we had over "I hate WED clothes"....
I have also been told that around this time period I may or may not have thrown a lizard on my mom at the park. I believe that I have blocked this memory, rumor has it that she was NOT a happy camper and I should be thankful that I made it through alive.
Unlike most other moms in the world mine is special...she gets a pass when it comes to doctoring boo-boo's. Well...she can doctor your boo-boo IF you want to pick her up out of the floor when she faints. Which makes the night that Johnnie needed tons of stitches in his arm even funnier to me.
He came to the kitchen (showered and dressed) with a towel wrapped around his arm and said "Mom, don't look...but we need to go get stitches". She of course wouldn't look and drove him to the ER...I'm sure that she left sweaty hand prints on the steering wheel. Still don't know how she made it through this without fainting...
This fact about her also makes it so much more special that she was able to be in the room when both of my boys were born. Actually SHE was the ONLY one able to stand beside me during Houston's dramatic entrance. (Linda was having to make sure Danny and my mom didn't faint)
One of my favorite things to do is to obnoxiously hug my mommy...we all know how much she loves hugs! (She hates to be hugged) I get so much joy out of watching her "tooth breathe" and growl at me after a huge bear hug. She can act mad...but if I was gone she would miss that annoyance! (You're welcome mom)
Speaking of tooth breathing....another favorite memory is when I was a teenager and I parked my car in her spot in the garage. NEVER EVER make that mistake. My mom, who is the most well balanced person I know, totally went tooth breathing mad on me. Since then I have never parked anywhere near her spot again!
As a child it was not uncommon for her and my Aunt Lynn to chase me, Johnnie, and Brittany down and give us benadryl (when we were so tired we couldn't stand ourselves). According to those two benadryl was a cure all. "Ah you have a sunburn...here's some benadryl"
Those two always were into something...remember the Sun-In days? Aunt Lynn convinced my mom that it was a great idea to use sun-in on her DARK BROWN hair. Enters my mom's red hair phase...
One summer (shortly after my parents built their house they are in now) Johnnie and I were home and decided that we would use the shower rod as a pull up bar. We ripped it off of the wall. That same summer we kept trying to turn her dining room into a "hospital" with bags of red food coloring and water mixed as pretend IV's. She didn't share our same creative thought process...her grown up mind was only worried about her brand new almost white carpet.
That was also the year that I gave Johnnie a black eye...I learned really fast that Johnnie was "the baby" and NO BODY (not even Beth) messes with "the baby".
Growing up my teachers were constantly calling home or sending notes home to my parents. I was..umm...strong willed and active (sounds like Bryson). One year a teacher called home and told my mom that he was calling about her son....she laughed in his face and told him he had called about the wrong child "If you were calling about my daughter I would believe you...but that doesn't sound like anything my son would do".
Of course I covered a few of my funny memories of her...but there is no way for me to cover the thousands of times she fixed my hair the right way. There is no way I can recall all of the times she survived a "Beth Fit" and no way to repay her for saving me from my blue eye shadow phase. (Yeah..that wasn't cute Beth)
The truth is our family wouldn't be what we were today if it wasn't for my mom holding down the fort. She cooks dinner for us every night, keeps our house clean, works a full time job, never misses a ballgame, takes care of her mom (and used to care for her dad), helps with my kids, and balances church/friends in with that mix. You all think I am super mom....WRONG...I am nothing compared to my mom.
Happy Mother's Day to my fancy mommy! It's been a fun 29 years of pushing you to your limits and a wonderful 25 years of fighting over which kid is your favorite. There is no one else that could have raised me and Johnnie! Only you were strong enough! (Now you get to do round two...with my boys)
We love you!
