Describe Me In Three Words (Why’d I Ask???)
31 03 2008I told you all I would come back regarding this post by UmmFarouq. I don’t talk alot about my family or specifics here. Part of it is privacy for myself, but moreso it is privacy for them. But I do have an 11 year old son. He doesn’t live with me but we are very close and now that the weather is better he is walking or riding his bike to my house at random times (with no warning, LOL, so that he scares me half to death when he pounds on my front door and I’m not expecting anyone).
So I spent quite a bit of unexpected time with my son hanging around the house this weekend, during which I decided to ask him Umm Farouq’s question: Describe your Mom in three words. I told him he had to use the first three words that came to mind because I didn’t want him to second-guess himself or try to say what he thinks I want to hear (that was probably a mistake, by the way). So, his three words to describe me:
- Naggy
- Caring
- Pissed Off
Okay, naggy and caring probably go hand-in-hand really. I mean, I like to think I’m not that naggy, but then as a pre-teen boy he gives me a lot to nag, LOL. I’m glad there was one positive in there.
The other… well, I shouldn’t even admit that one, huh? But in all honesty, this was a particularly difficult weekend during which he had run into the office with me to simply run a quick copy of the Monday interpreter’s schedule only to discover a complete muck up had occurred while I was out for three hours on Friday for a doctor’s appointment. Prior to the incident in the grocery store (which happened after my visit to the office, and perhaps now you understand why I didn’t trust myself to respond at all to that crazy old man), I had spent Friday evening on the phone though off-the-clock walking people through how to handle my job, and then gone in Saturday morning to discover a huge mess that I had to spend the rest of the day taking care of. So, it’s true, I was pissed off and used some very unladylike language to express my frustration. On that particular day, I can’t blame him for choosing that word but I hope on another day he can find something less negative-while-still truthful to associate with me.
Mothering is hard and this weekend I kinda failed. But I took him to the second hand store to buy some junk to make him happy. And he found me a CD of Arabic Dabke there… see, he still loves me. 
I cannot whittle you down to three words.
LOL, I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.
But if you go read my dear friend Umm Farouq’s post, you will see that the exercise is actually about guaging how our children view us. Clearly, I’ve got some relationship-work to do with mine.
Hee hee, I’m tempted to ask that little monkey-neice of mine what words she’d use to describe you…
Oh honey, if I’d asked them yesterday, they’d have probably come up with “insane” or “looney-bin bound” or “sad,” or even “pissed off” like your son said. These three adjectives are going to change, based on our situations/moods/circumstances. They are fluid. I pray that they (chosen adjectives) do not define us as mothers in the big picture.
I think the important thing about this is that it helps them to understand how we as parents may be super judgemental of our kids one day, and on another day very forgiving, and maybe on another day just plain silly and playful. I’m trying to be less jaw-clenched and frowny all the time, and enjoy these moments I have with them that cannot be repeated.
At least they know, I hope, that we’re trying.