Despite my parent's dire warnings, admonitions and wincing criticism over the years, I must have done something right.
First, I had to leave the Motherland and hefty tuition discount that was, Ohio State University, and trek to a place on earth where grocery stores were named after pigs, it rained for days on end and the humidity level never dropped below 98%. Somehow I managed to make the Dean's List and graduate, not only with a legitimate diploma, but with a job in hand and five of the best friends for whom a girl could ask and who still speak to me today. I must have, besides naming my daughter after one of them, done something right.
So as if staying in Florida for a job weren't bad enough, I had to marry a Boy from there. In his childhood church, not mine. And it wasn't even "Catlick" (my grandmother's lingo). I had to look up the word, "acquiesce" in the dictionary after one particularly pointed letter from Ohio. I'll be married 20 years this month. To the same Boy from Florida. We must have done something right.
Well the children came along as they sometimes do, which opened up the floodgates, as it always does, of unsolicited advice from everyone; including well meaning relatives, strangers in the diaper aisle, the big haired check out lady at Lowes and of course, the newly crowned grandparents. ( I don't know how or when, but I know there was a coronation along the way, as my mother told me she would not "abdicate her position" as my children's grandmother). Note to self: Add Tiara to shopping list.
And so it was, on more than one royal visit to my not so royal household, my husband (now a dad, no crown involved though) and I were informed we were too hard on our son. We favored him over our daughter and expected far more out of him than her. At the time, our daughter was not yet of speaking age. Our son was in school. So yes, we did expect more out of a potty trained, fluent English speaking child than his diaper clad, drool machine of a baby sister.
I'm happy to report we somehow managed to potty train our daughter before she entered pre-kindergarten. When you're young, living on more love, hope and mac and cheese than money, you tend to get motivated. Diapers were expensive.
What made me think of all this? Well, you know how I hate to iron? I succumbed last week and plugged in the Behemoth. Why? My little boy asked me. He was sitting snuggly with his no longer drooling sister, on our overstuffed chair, with dueling bowls of ice-cream and a Tivo'd episode of CSI. "Mom? Can you iron my gown and stole?" No, he's not in seminary. He's graduating from high school tomorrow. And his stole? National Beta Club. And that cord around his shoulders? Summa Cum Laude.
My husband and I looked at our children; then back at each other. Yep. We must have done something right.
