Monday Memories: Mother's Day Confessions

As a tip of the hat to all you mothers out there, I thought that a fitting ode to my mom might be to list some of the crazy things my siblings and I did as children - but the list is mostly me, so as not to incriminate the siblings too, too much.  I list them because my mom must have been a complete SAINT to have kept her cool while raising me and my brother and sister.  I know we weren't the worst kids, but when I think back on the things we did, it makes me do one of those nervous laughs - partly out of mortification and partly for fear my kids will do worse!

So, Mom... this list's for you!  Happy Mother's Day, and thank you for being a patient, understanding soul!  Love ya!

1.  Filled the dishwasher with regular dishsoap and flooded the kitchen completely with a sea of bubbles.

2.  Ripped the pantry door off its hinges while rough housing in the house.

3.  Dragged a dead spider plant in its hanger out of the pile of garbage at the curb for many, many garbage pick up days in a row and hid it in the window well at the side of the house.  Somehow Mom kept finding it and taking it back to the curb.  I got very attached to objects, for some reason.  It reminds me of that old IKEA commercial... you can imagine how upsetting it must have been for me to see it for the first time!  I need help, clearly.

4.  When I was about 8, in the name of "science", I kept a cup full of spit in the cupboard for several weeks... just to see what would happen.  You can imagine how pleased my mom was when she stumbled across that little gem!  (you can't imagine how embarrassed I am sharing this, but it's a good example of the kind of stuff my mom endured.)

5.  Was in charge of my little brother one night and went to another town with our friends to meet some boys and in a spectacular display of complete irresponsibility left our brother (who was probably 12 at the time) by himself to play Nintendo in the middle of the night at this one boy's house.  This boy's grandmother happened to be sleeping in another room and woke up.  When we arrived back at the house well after midnight, we walked in to find the two of them playing Nintendo.

6.  In all seriousness, I wrapped our van around a tree one day and probably gave my mom (and dad... and my best friend's parents) a heart attack and flashbacks of the crumpled van for life.

7.  <Removed to protect the innocent!>

8.  The very first week I moved away from home to go to university, I participated in frosh week initiation and described it in gleeful detail to my mother.  I was giddy with the novelty of a new place to live, new friends, and the creativity of the frosh week planning committee.  My mom will probably never recover from the shock of hearing all of the "creativity".  Sorry mom!  Not sure what I was thinking!

9.  After they kicked the bucket, kept our sweet little guinea pigs in a jar for a while (perhaps waiting for the right time to bury them?  My memory is fuzzy on this one.).

10.  Stole a flashing construction light (which I hid in my closet under a blanket because I was overcome with guilt).

11.  Faked sick many, many, many times.

12.  Phoned my mom many, many, many times in the middle of the night crying about stupid things I'd done - and to her credit, she always was so wonderful about it.

13.  Spent all my money in the first semester of university... and I mean every cent.  I was selling the scrip (the university's fake food plan money that they gave to residence students... it was like monopoly money) to commuter students at a discount to get my hands on cash.

14.  Wrote all over my bedroom walls... and invited every person who came to our house to do the same.  At the end, I couldn't believe the people who ended up leaving their autograph on my bedroom wall.  Even our highschool's vice-principal signed!

15.  While trying to slide down our staircase bannister (well... that point is actually in dispute... I think I shall have to blog about this one day to defend myself.  In the meantime, though... let's say I was trying to slide down it for the sake of simplicity.) I flipped over and only saved myself from crashing from the second story to the main floor by somehow grabbing the vertical thingers... spindles!  Thank you Google!  Anyway, I hung there for a while, gasping in a panicked whisper: "Help!" until my mom wandered in to the hallway and looked up and saw me hanging there.  She's got a good head on her shoulders and coordinated a fine rescue!  Although she said later she was freaking out, she had the presence of mind to stand under me to cushion my fall until Dad could get there to haul me back onto the stairs.  Only a mom would sacrifice herself like that to cushion the fall of her flaky child!

I suppose that's enough for now.  Hopefully my mom will find this little trip down memory lane amusing now that a number of years have passed.  Happy Mother's Day, Mom!  Thank you for being just the mom I needed and for being a patient and wonderful human being!