Musings at Altitude

On this very special day, I want to first pause in thanks to all the special women I know who have one or many people calling them Mom.  Judging by the enormous talents and phenomenal love demonstrated by your children and knowing the time required and the passion you bring to your job as Mom, I have the utmost respect and love for each of you.  And to my Mom, who I hope does indeed read my blog and get some smiles every now and then, I love you!

On a more personal note though, I wanted to spend just a moment talking about what it means from my perspective to be a Mom, and use as an example the Mom I share a bed with, the mother of my children – my tremendously beautiful and wonderfully talented wife.  To talk about her as a Mom, I’d like to go back to a couple specific events in our lives together that so vividly show her skill, her love, and her astute understanding of the psychology of children and her roll as a Mom to prepare them for adulthood. 

First, when we moved out to Los Angeles in 1988, our oldest daughter was only three years old and our son had just learned to walk.  One evening at home, our adventurous son decided it was time for him to check out the kitchen counter tops, so he climbed up on his small table and somehow heaved himself up onto the kitchen counter.  When his Mom entered the kitchen and saw her little baby boy walking on the counter, she reacted in fear, not that he might fall, but that she might not have time to get to her camera and get a picture before he got off the counter.  Weighing the time she figured she’d have with the personnel in the house to accomplish her task, she adroitly asked her three year old daughter to watch her brother while she ran for the camera.  Alas, all was well, and her just learning to walk son grew into an adventurous young man fully capable of handling himself in just about any environment.  I’m only guessing, but I’m pretty sure it traces back to that very moment (or maybe to a moment a couple years later when I let him carry his own hot soup when he was only about 3 years old – that was pretty stupid of me but once again a moment in life that allowed him to mature pretty darn quick).

Second, when our oldest daughter was only about 6 or 7 years old, she wanted to pour her own milk (can’t remember if in a glass or on her cereal) – one of those enormously important challenges and signs of growing up.  I was excited for her and proud of her Mom for letting her do it.  As she began to pour, with an incredibly serious focus in her face, her Mom waited patiently and then right when the milk left the carton, her Mom pearcingly screamed at my daughter causing milk to fly all over the kitchen, causing our daughter to break out in tears and causing me and her Mom to roll on the floor (figuratively) laughing.   As our daughter cried and as we laughed, we tried to clean up a huge mess in our kitchen, and after a couple of high fives (I vaugely remember) we tried to calm down our daughter.  All was well after those few minutes of tears and laughter, but that set the stage for years of each of us trying to scare the other…but it all seems to have traced back to that one incredible moment.

We have thousands more of these types of incidents, but I think both of these events were key triggers in the personality development of our kids.  Both of these kids are now young adults and both seem to be very stable – at least whenever I’m around.  I can’t help but believe their personalities and their maturity today were somehow shaped by these types of events throughout their lives.

To their mother, I wish you a magnificent Mother’s Day.  Thanks for the smiles, the laughter, the adventure, and the love!  We’re all better because of you!