Post-Dated?

Fiorella found a page from an old publication of hers that dates back to her motherhood years:

Motherhood has given me a great deal of poise.  Nothing can happen to me in public that somehting worse hasn't happened to me at home, although I did get a little uneasy when we were in a check-out lane at Safeway and my eldest questioned me about exactly how the sperm got to the egg.
*
When my seldest was an "only," I scrubbed his sneakers daily before he went to pre-school. My second and third--just nineteen months apart, were lucky if I could even find their sneakers.
*
My mother and I are at different stages in our lives. She stops at an exclusive dress shop in Salado on her way from Waco to Dallas. I stop in Abbot and buy turkey wings.
*
When I was a kid, my mother used to drag me around from store to store with her, and I hated it. Now my nine-year-old daughter drags me around from store to store with her, and I still hate it. Shopping must skip a generation.
*
My teen-ager is growing up. With a patronizing smile, he now passes all the cereal premiums on to his younger siblings--except for the really good ones, of course.

If Fio's imposed any of these gems on you before, please just laugh and move on.

To My Children

Fiorella tried to be a good mother, but she wishes she'd been a better mother. Her only excuse is that sometimes she was tired, or angry, or depressed, or just plain stupid. Please forgive her, and learn from her mistakes

The Generation without Grandparents

Women are electing to put off motherhood as long as possible now. Maybe it's part of being the "spoiled generation," the products of child-centered homes in a country of plenty. Maybe it's because women need that extra time to get ahead in the workplace.  Maybe it's because couples don't want to interrupt their lives with midnight diaper changes.

Whatever the situation, the clock is the ticking--the biological clock and the clock of life.  Grandparents can't stick around forever.

Memorable Moments in Motherhood

When Fio heard Daughter singing "Midnight" from Cats and realized that Daughter has not only a voice, which Fio at one time had, but also natural musicianship, which Fio never had.

When Fio heard Younger son tell his KidsActing group that the person he respected most was his family, because they never stop trying. (Fio's note: and he never does either.)

When Fio looked at the group-effort poster that Older Son's first grade class had just brought back from art class and noticed, in the center of it, a drawing of a bird, and wished her son had done it--and learned he had.

Shades

Every morning Fiorella comes downstairs and, first off, opens the shades. From past experience, she knows that if she didn't do it, the house would be shrouded in darkness all day. Husband wouldn't think to welcome the new day and neither would any offspring in residence at the time.

But Fio is a mother, and that's what mothers do--let the light shine in.