I recently got one of those "friend" info surveys. What's book would you read over & over.... What would your last meal be.... What movie brings you to tears... what movie can you quote line by line.....
my answers: Summer Sisters by Judy Blume.... mom's fried chicken with mashed potatoes & her white country gravy, a close second would be mom's chicken and noodles, plopped on top of a scoop of mashed potatoes & corn.... Steel Magnolias.... Pretty Woman
another favorite movie is Terms of Endearment. It was "a little before my time," but I watched it as an adult about 5 years ago... as a mother of two young boys.
Emma (Debra Winger) and her mother Aurora (Shirley MacLaine) have a love/hate relationship. Emma follows her husband and moves far away from home... to Nebraska, I think.... While living in the midwest Emma discovers she has cancer... Aurora flies into Lincoln, Nebraska... bent on rescuing her daughter from the cancer which is ravaging her body ... a true portrait of motherly love. Typically is the daughter being the caregiver for an elderly parent.... a modern tragedy ....
I feel blessed to have never faced illness on this scale... for myself or those I love.
Emma and her husband have had a "falling out"... his intimacy had strayed... leaving Emma's parting-of-this-world, a difficult one... Aurora ends up taking the kids back to Houston with her ... back to child-rear-again.
My favorite line of this movie (there are many) is Emma talking to Flap, her cheating husband, on her deathbed in the Lincoln Hospital..... expressing her opinion on child-rearing...
"it's a lot of work.... as hard as you think it is..... you end up wishing it were that easy....."
Raising kids is a lot of work ..... just when you think you have it figured out... they throw you a curve ball.... making me feel like I'm back up to bat.... some days wanting to shield my face, rather than take a swing...
When trying to figure out what I was doing as a neophyte parent with and infant ... then a toddler I used to think, "Child development says that most children don't have any memories before age 3" .... if I can get it figured out in the next three years... I won't scare their memories too badly... they're 9 & 6 years old & I'm still learning...
I see myself in the character of Emma. She wasn't always the most obedient daughter... didn't always show her mother her appreciation... Being a free sort of spirit... being moved far from home....
As a mother Emma has many run-ins with her oldest son Tommy ... before she passes, she tries to talk with him...
"I know you like me. I know it. For the last year or two, you've been pretending like you hate me. I love you very much. I love you as much as I love anybody, as much as I love myself. And in a few years when I haven't been around to be on your tail about something or irritating you, you could... remember that time that I bought you the baseball glove when you thought we were too broke. You know? Or when I read you those stories? Or when I let you goof off instead of mowing the lawn? Lots of things like that. And you're gonna realize that you love me. And maybe you're gonna feel badly, because you never told me. But don't - I know that you love me. So don't ever do that to yourself, all right?"
My oldest son and I had a "run-in" yesterday ... he wanted me to stop bugging him about correcting a math paper... I wanted him to stop dilly-dally-ing around and get it done.... he said something disrespectful ...
sticks & stones may break my bones, but words will ....
I'll admit I lost it... then gained composure & squirted liquid soap in his mouth... when I was five I said a bad word at day care... they made me sit in time out, for what felt like an hour... with a bar of Irish Spring in my mouth... I didn't cuss again, for a long time....
At bedtime he apologized... I don't think he really even understood what it meant... something absorbed from a peer, or TV ... the result of a society spiralling into moral corruption....
I spent many hours wallowing in my own self-pity.... taking a long soak in a bubble bath, with a glass of Cabernet to drown my sorrow.... sorrow for his loss of innocence.... sorrow for my reaction... I began to think about all of the comments... the nagging, etc., etc. that had easily rolled off my tongue ... venomously striking.... not to be taken back once they have escaped... spilling out of my mouth... Lord give me kaopectate for this mouth of mine...
A favorite verse... one on my personal Bible mandate is from the book of James...
James 1 (New Living Translation)
"17 Every good and perfect gift comes from above.... from the Father, who created all the heavenly lights."
... then just a few verses later James gives us some steadfast advice...
... "19 my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry."
Our children are our gift from the Lord... we have been given providence over them.... to raise them, feed & clothe them, hug & kiss them, teach them about Jesus & His love ... to be Jesus to them and the world...
Our children are sponges... soaking up our words and actions... the good, the bad AND the ugly...
... they will parrot our words and actions back at us .... it is my job to make sure they are full of love and goodness...
Yes raising children is challenging... for me, a former teacher who had impeccable classroom management, "controling" the behavior of 125 6th graders was a piece of cake.... yes there are days you wish is "were half that easy"
I know that God is good and faithful... and if I meditate on James 1:19 .... if I allow the "mantra" of it to fill my mind as my brain wants to let words spill from my mouth .... the Lord will help me to listen first and speak... only when I have thought it through.... so that my "good & precious gifts" always know that they are just that to me... through the words and actions I shower on them ...
So my nine year old asked my if I would snuggle with him at bedtime last night... his way of trying to get a free backrubb.... his way of waving a white flag of forgiveness....
P.S. sorry for no pics today... had some fun Terms of Endearment images of MacLaine & Winger, but my server won't load them this morning....
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