>Second Childhood
>It’s a strange thing to leave a place where I’m the mother, the wife, the chief cook and bottle washer, the launderer, the nanny and the naggy nag nag- and to end up in a place where I am and will always be simply the child.
For all my responsibilities, my accomplishments, my stretch marks and my gray hairs, when I look at my parents I see an impossibly young and naive version of myself reflected in their eyes. I used to be annoyed by the illusion, but now, I’m charmed. Particularly on this visit, when only the baby is witness to my mother’s hugging and pinching and prodding and her barrage of advice, like telling me my newly-dyed hair looks good, but extreme and I’d better not get any more extreme than this (Why not? I want to say. What exactly is going to happen? I don’t even have the heart to tell her that I could dye my hair hot pink and it wouldn’t matter. Not like it used to. I’m just a suburban housewife after all).
Oh, my mother. My mother was in rare form tonight.
At dinner, I told my parents about the girls’ My Space pages. I reassured them that the girls were not allowed to accept any e-mails from people they didn’t know.
“Oh, you’d better make sure of that!” my mom said knowledgeably, cutting into her tenderloin. “There are lots of perverts out there. And they act very smooth. Like that John the Ripper. He was a suave one.”
I giggled. Only my mother would call him John the Ripper.
“It’s true!” my mother insisted, mistaking my giggle for disbelief. “John the Ripper was as nice as they come!”
My dad started laughing too.
“You laugh, but perverts aren’t all creepy like you’d think!” she said, looking from one of us to another.
Dad and I said nothing. We knew by now that silence is always the best policy where my mother is concerned.
Tonight, I put the baby to bed and came back out into the den to find my mom holding two glasses of wine and the television remote.
“What do you want to watch?” she said excitedly.
“Oh mom, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve got a terrible headache from driving and I think I’m just going to go to bed.”
“Okay,” my mom said. Taking to bed is one of her specialties; she instantly understood. “Well, goodnight then. I’m so glad you’re here.”
And this is how I can tell I’m getting older. Five years ago, I would’ve been inwardly laughing to myself that I’d escaped TV time with mom.
Now, I feel a little sad.
>Awww. TV and wine with mom, doesn’t get any better than that! Found you from BOB–congratulations on making it to the top ten!
>I like your mommy. If she was my MIL, I don’t think I would have wanted her in the labor room either, though. When my oldest was being born somehow my father in law ended up the room reading a big old newspaper while the nurse shoved her hand up me to check the cervix. I kicked everybody out of the room (way too many folks) and they were shocked.
>Somehow my mom always ends up holding me hostage until 2:00 in the morning when she comes to visit. Teach me how you say no to her. I want to know the secret.
>I know exactly what you mean…
>Ah, learning to navigate around parental peculiarities. My guess is that when you were younger you would have argued more with your mom when she made an baseless point. Now you know to just let it roll off you. But does it mean I’m a horrible person if I say I wish you’d dye your hair pink and blog about your mom’s reaction? ;^)
>Yes, you have to learn to pick your battles with your mom. The older I get, the more I realize that mine just talks to hear her own voice and she doesn’t mean to irritate the absolute living HELL out of me! (And I do love her, just as you love your mom.)
>OOOO! OOO! OOO!!! Can I psycho-anlyze your mother?? pretty please with sugar??lol
>You’re mother sounds like most moms. I know what you mean about the saddness. I feel that sometimes too.
>Beanie Baby fraud? please tell me you have a previous post about this one? 😉
>”John the ripper” Ha! That seriously sounds like something my mom would say and if I every attempt to correct her, I’m “putting her down”. Really, I have THE most insecure mother in the world (and not the brightest.)
>Beanie Baby fraud ? lol I miss my mother I never did get to see her as an old lady, she died at 49, I have no doubt she would have been in rare form though.
>John the Ripper.I.Love.That.
>Sounds like a good evening overall. reading about it made me giggle along with you. When I visit my mother we always stay up way to late talking. I have to go there again soon.
>Yeah, I want to hear about the Beanie Baby fraud! (((hug))) my friend, I know what you meant at the end of your post.
>When people ask me if I miss the US, I tell them the only thing I miss is my mother. If I could have her over her in Australia I’d never leave. Even though she treats me like I’m 8, ignores my pleas to stop spoiling the children and overriding my decisions about them, tells the same stories over and over and over about embarrassing moments from my childhood, I miss her terribly.Dammit, now I’m all melancholy.
>I love reading your posts about your mom. It is cathartic. It seems everyone’s mom is a nut-job to some degree or another. Mine is a very big one! But I’m starting to love her in a more unconditional way than I ever would have imagined possible. She drives the shit out of me, but she’s my mom, too.
>Good story.. It touched me. I better go listen to my Mom rage on and keep my mouth shut!
>I could tell all sorts of stories about the nightmares with my family, but my dad reads my blog, so it would get back. I may need to start a secret bitch about relatives blog someday.My mom is actually up here for a week until I get my knee brace loosened and it has been OK so far. Knock wood.
>oh Mothers…how do they manage to touch those parts others can’t reach? Anger, frustration, tears – can’t hide ’em when my mother’s around…Minerva
>This is why I don’t stay with my Mom when I go home.That and the fact that she lives in a smoky one-bedroom apartment. But then again, I didn’t stay with her when she was still in my childhood home.Have a good visit.
>It’s interesting to watch parents age. Things that pissed me off so horribly when I was young just seem like idiosyncracies now. Funny and a little sad.
>What is it with our mothers and their ability to irritate and warm all in the one evening???
>I want to be your grandmother when I grow up! Seriously, though, I find that I catch myself mentally when my mother gets on my nerves because she is getting older. Mix that irritation with a little sadness and a pinch of guilt because I know I don’t spend enough time with her now that I have my own children.
>thanks for dropping in to help with Kim’s angst over comments and no, we never mind people coming over when drunk, in fact, we encourage it. I have had lots of trouble getting comments to work on blogger recently so while this box seems to be working fine, let me quickly add how delighted I was to see the correct use of the verb ‘impact’ in the post below. I know that makes me sound horribly old and pedantic but almost no one can resist adding “on” or “upon” after impact these days and your (correct) restraint gave much pleasure. Bloody hell, I really am turning into my mother.
>Just found your blog through the BoB Awards site. Congratulations. You are definitely funny. I enjoyed my visit.
>Isn’t funny how you realize they mean well, even when mothers annoy the shit out of you? Isn’t it heartbreaking to realize they won’t be here to do it forever?
>Ah, Lucinda. I leave town on the 11th and you go to the Netherlands on the 12th! (On all fours? WTH? THAT’S not true!). Then your chest, the Golden Globes and such sass in the post below this one! Do any of those people read your blog? I wish I was that bold…And here, you touch my heart. I didn’t think they day would come when I was all sentimental about mom- but it has.I did, incidentally, take time to vote each day- although you can never tell how those Florida votes get counted.
>*anxiously awaiting report from the weekend*