For the last three months, much of my life has been consumed by a tiny, adorable human I am blessed to call my daughter. I expect this to continue forever. I’ve been thrown up on, peed on and worse on countless occasions. I sleep a handful of hours, worry twice as much and I haven’t fixed my hair once since the day she was born … but it’s all more than worth it. And I think most moms/guardians would agree.
We were all babies once, and we all had someone to take care of us. No matter how much crying we did, the size of the messes we made or the number of gray hairs we’re responsible for, our mothers love us unconditionally without end.
My brother and I were mostly good kids, but we did test mom’s patience with our constant fighting and general mischievousness.
Once, my friend and I gathered up dozens of goat-head stickers and sprinkled them on the carpet around my parents’ bed, then asked my brother to play a game with us in which we would stand on the bed and he would run around it and try to swat at our legs. It wasn’t long before Jake was howling in pain, and Kayla and I were crawling around the bedroom floor, picking up stickers while a stern and thoroughly unimpressed mother observed from the doorway.
On the flip side, I recall my brother and his friend ambushing me with hairspray and baby powder just as I had finished getting ready to go somewhere. Jake had to clean up the mess, but I’m certain both the stickers and the baby powder events required some extra tidying up on mom’s part.
For the longest time, the outside of the downstairs bathroom door at my parents’ was covered in pictures my brother and I had drawn purely out of love – or so they thought. Our house didn’t have locks on any of the doors, and the only way we could get away from each other was to run inside the downstairs bathroom, press our feet against the side of the sink and our backs against the door. A sibling wielding a weapon, a considerable amount of anger, or both usually followed whoever sought shelter closely.
The pictures were covering large dents in the door, made by the pursuing sibling and their weapons of choice, which included baseball bats, golf clubs and good, old-fashioned fists. Once we had both calmed down, we’d draw pictures to tape over the damage and proudly show mom our work when she got home.
I should note my brother eventually fixed the door the right way and we never severely injured each other. In fact, we get along great now. I guess we got it out of our system then.
Anyway, just a reminder: Your mom loves you a lot and you probably put her through a lot. So don’t forget her this Mother’s Day.
