Mothering in My Younger Years: Flying Money & Nightgown Shenanigans

In honor of Mother's Day,
I'm going down Memory Lane today
and sharing a memory or two of my younger mothering years.

Age: 25
Yahoos' ages: 4,3,2.
Place: Phoenix, AZ.

One bright, sunny morning (is there another kind in AZ?),
my husband left me grocery money on our bookcase headboard.
Four crisp twenty dollar bills.
The kids and I got going that morning
with our usual routine,
and when we were all ready to go
I went to get the money from my room.
Only, it wasn't there.
I looked on the floor
nothing.
Under the bed,
nothing.
Pulled all of the covers off the bed,
nothing.
I was exasperated!
Then I looked up and saw that the glass-sliding door
off my bedroom
was just barely open.
I called the kids into my room
and asked
who'd been outside that morning,
and did either of them see the money on my bed.
Four year old David Scott's eyes lit up
and he smiled a big smile.
Then he related how he'd taken the money,
and thrown it off the balcony to the apartment parking lot below.

"Why?", I asked "Why, would you do such a thing?"


"I wanted to watch money fly out the window." he said.

Yes, I cried back then. But eventually, it became a joke in our house.

******

Age 30:
Yahoos' ages: 9,8,7, almost 2.
Place: Spartanburg, SC

A chilly spring morning,
the oldest yahoos were off to school
leaving Diana and I alone at home.
I loved my mornings with her.
She was my little shadow.
Well, one morning,
right after I watched the older kids get on the bus
from my front window,
I realized I hadn't checked the mail the day before.
The mailbox was just at the end of the driveway
so I decided to just run out there real quick
in my nightgown and fetch it.
Just as I got to the end of the drive,
I heard the front door slam shut.
I wasn't concerned until I went to open it.

Diana had not only shut the door,
but the door's faulty lock had "caught" too.
All she had to do,
I told her,
was "turn the knob".
Turn.
The.
Knob.

Turn.
The.
Knob.

Turntheknobturntheknobturntheknob.

I could see her plainly thru the window panes
on the door,
and I stayed as calm as I could.
But she started crying anyway.

"Mama. Mama. Mama."

I climbed up to the planter in the front window,
to see if, by chance, that window was not locked.
It wasn't!
Yes!
I was looking closely at the window screen,
trying to figure out how to pull it out,
when I heard a male voice just behind me
on the ground.
"Locked out, hunh?"

ACK!

It was my neighbor, headed out to work.

"Uh, yeah." I answered. humiliated. embarrassed. freaking out inside.

"Here," he said "let me help."

So I came down out of the brick planter,
folding my arms in front of
my nightgown.

He got up there,
popped out the screen,
climbed thru the window
and opened the front door.

Little Diana came running toward me,
tears all over her chubby cheeks
and we both hugged each other like we'd been
separated at birth.

I thanked my neighbor profusely
while he replaced the screen.
Then me and my dignity went back into the house
where we looked for a corner to die in.

*****
I wish I had been the woman to say this,
because it's so true:

Motherhood Ain't For Sissies.

Okay so tell me I'm not the only mother in the world that's had these kind of experiences?!!