WHEN DO YOU STOP BEING A MOTHER?

The phone rang and an exasperated daughter asked me, "When do you stop being a Mother?" I told her, " I don't know, Baby, you just called me!" We both laughed because that was a classic example of parentings misunderstood directions. We forget these kids didn't come with a laundry label so you would know how to keep the kid looking it's best and understanding the ground rules. I only babysat twice so what I knew about taking care of kids was zilch. Besides, I became a photographers model as soon as I stepped one long leg out the door at fifteen. She evidently thought it over and understood her plight, not sure if I did so........... when DO you quit being Mom?

And where is the period when you go off and fly around the world or jump in your RV and take in some lakes along the highway, or your and a friend take one of those tours to the Canyon? I missed that somehow because this same daughter that was asking the question kept finding me in Arizona a couple times a year and at first I was a bit surprised since she wasn't too hot on talking to me as a child. Now Im sitting here in my native birthplace and she's acting like my Mother and I've been relegated to the child position again. Missed the whole thing I did. But I'm not going to complain or start any uprising. She hasn't made me go find her a switch yet!

LITTLE BOY NOISES

There are few boys in our family. When I had my son there were three young and two older. Not having boys around to care for, their mannerisms, sounds and words are long forgotten from their playground antics and now I'm a mother and have to guide him in the ways of my world. Well when he first came into my world, after having one girl that spoke excessively and the other that had the conversation of an autistic mute, I was ill prepared for the many sounds that issued form the short stocky boy rambling on the floor running Tonka trucks down the carpet and around the legs of chairs and blocks of wood he'd piled up.

The sounds changed from roars to hisses and clucks. Sounds of explosions as a toy was dropped from on high to blow up the pile of blocks. There were wild sounds at times when he simply sat in a chair eating his breakfast, or on the toilet showing me what a big boy he was. Beside myself with worry he might be retarded I asked my Mother what did she think. "Cheri", she said with a soft smile, "he's making little boy noises." Since then Ive paid attention to sounds that come from men, and find there isnt much of a change from the explosives sounds they hurled as kids from the description of how a long pass was caught by the running back as he plowed into the opposing team. But dont take my word for it, watch a group of them enjoying a football game and listen to them running through all the "little boy noises".