Part of an email to a friend last week:
“I just realized something…and I don’t know why this didn’t sink in before but just as I was reading your question my son came to me with the traditional “Mom, can you come look at something?” and I’m thinking to myself, “Why must the kids always make me come look at something?”
My five year old is starting to discover the joys of writing and wrote his first story last week. He was so proud he asked me to bring it to work with me and then quickly made me promise to bring it back home, too. I was wise enough, albeit at the last minute, to have some coworkers write comments on post-its so I could attach them to the story and bring the story back to my son with their glowing praise stuck to the front. He was thrilled.
If you’re a mother, and a loving one at that – is it okay (just every now and then) to wish your kids could suddenly not utter any forms or variations of the word “Mom”? I would still love them and all. But just for an hour, if they could be in the house and not have that word come out of their mouths, I think I’d have to call Guiness and report a new record.
I think it only becomes bothersome because “Mom” is almost always followed by an action verb and it’s a verb that applies to me. Rarely is it just “Mom, I love you”. It’s attached to a task that I must do. Sign something, settle something, clean up something, go get something, wash something, think of something, find something, fix something.