1. She never says goodbye on the phone. When she's done talking, she just hangs up.
2. She will not accept any presents.
3. If you tell her you like something in her house, she will immediately force you to take it.
4. She has never said "I love you" to any of her children.
5. She has the most lovely singing voice, which she will only rarely share.
6. She once stole a cat and returned it when her mother found out. She then collected the reward for the missing cat.
7. She will drive across state lines for a great pizza.
8. She taught the kids in our neighborhood how to jump double dutch.
9. She made up funny nicknames for teachers she didn't like; the principal of my elementary school, Mr. Reardon, is actually called (according to my mother) Mr. Rearend.
10. She taught me the following rhyme to say to kids I didn't like:
Scab sandwich
pus on top
monkey's vomit
camel's snot
eagle's eyeballs dipped in glue
that's a sandwich made for you
My mom's not perfect, and I can trace certain issues I have back to certain behaviors of hers, but I love her so much. If nothing else, she provides me with some of my best stories.
4 comments:
I am working on a post about mothers, too, and I've been stewing about it for weeks.
I really like the way you've constructed yours -- and your mother sounds like an interesting character. Some of her qualities sound really "at odds." Particularly the generosity contrasted with the withholding of "I love you." Isn't it strange how we can hold so many contradictions?
Just out of curiousity, does your mother read your blog?
Does the Irish side come from her, or your father, or both?
Here's a contradiction about my mom that I'm NOT going to share on my own site:
She gets highly offended if people don't give her presents for her special days, but she never likes what anyone gives her.
Bee: I always take her generosity as her way of saying "I love you". She's painfully shy, and she's gone so long without saying "I love you" that it would only draw a huge amount of attention to herself if she said it now. So she can't. My mother is an interesting character, she makes herself hard to love, yet it's very hard to not love her.
She doesn't read anything on the computer.
I get the Irish from both sides. My mother's parents (and everyone beyond them) were born in Ireland; my father (and everyone beyond him) was born in Ireland.
She gets highly offended if people don't give her presents for her special days, but she never likes what anyone gives her.
Sounds a wee bit passive aggressive! That's difficult. My older sister and I have worked out a system where, if one of us gives our mother a gift, we know it's something the other one of us likes, since she'll give it away immediately.
About the "I love you" thing: truly, actions do speak louder than words.
Yes, my mother is all kinds of passive aggressive.
So what kind of gifts do you give your mother (each other)?
Here's a coincidence: My parents just got back from a trip to Ireland! They had hot sunshine almost the entire two weeks! Unheard of! We went last summer and it rained every day.
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