"Keep jumping!!"

Tonight the gents were in high spirits, wrestling and jumping and running around the living room and oh, the noise, Noise, Noise, NOISE!!!!

So.....Oh, wait. before I start: Mom, you might want to skip this one. Go read one of the other posts about how cute your grandkids are, or about all of the things I'm canning and baking, and give yourself a great big hug and pat on the back from me because I had such a great role model for parenting and cooking.

The rest of you, picture this: I'm about eight years old. Tall, skinny, that awful hair, big seventies glasses. I was an active eight-year-old, by the way. Thank goodness we lived on several acres. I used just about every inch of those acres to run, crawl, jump, gallop, dig, climb, wade, roll. My busy little body just couldn't sit still even when I was sitting still.

I loved to jump. One of my favorite tricks was to jump and touch the top of the door frames. There were grimy little handprints at the top, I'm certain of it.

Jump, jump, jump. That was me.

One night, I guess I jumped one too many times. Mom said she'd told me and told me to stop. Honestly, I hadn't a thought in my head, I was just--oops--jumping. Again.

Remember what it was like when you were eight and Mom had told you in that voice something along the lines of fortheumpteenthtimestopbeforemyheadexplodes? It was always a little bewildering and well, you felt kind of bad because you knew that Mom was probably right but you'd just forgotten and you really didn't mean to because you loved your mom and you really wanted her to be happy, but....you just didn't remember. (In the interests of keeping it oh, so real, I remember that look well because I've seen it on the faces of my own children from time to time.)

Mom, in that voice: "Go outside and jump until you can't jump any more. Right there outside where I can see you."

There I am in the near-dark, jumping a little half-heartedly. Surely Mom didn't really mean it. Jump a couple more times for show then stand there with a woebegone look on my face. Surely Mom will poke her head out the window and see how sorry I am, and comfort me and give me a cookie or some Koolaid.

Mom sticks her head out the kitchen window and yells, "Keep jumping!"

I tell this story not because I want you all to think bad things about Mom. I think it's a pretty funny story. I wasn't scarred for life, or even for fifteen minutes. Even at the time I realized that she was probably justified.

I tell the story because tonight I realized:

I. Know. Exactly. How. She. Felt.

That is all.







P.S. I know I said "That is all." But I have to add that I told the story to my own daughter as we cleaned the kitchen together, and we got a good giggle out of it.

I love you, Mom.