mom's rules.

My morning begins with loud upstairs neighbors and the uncanny sensation that, at any moment, the elephant couple with come crashing down through the sorry excuse for plaster ceiling and land on top of me in bed. Sigh. My morning continues pitifully upon realizing that I had to shake the industrial sized can of coffee for a full scoop and I am wonderfully out of coffee mate.

Before my children come bounding out of bed with a vengenance, I am able to enjoy a cup, albeit mostly water and sugar and claim twenty minutes of CNN before the TV spends its day on Seasme Street and Sponge Bob. My days are all very different, yet somehow, very much the same.

Now, it is naptime. Again, I am enjoying a nuked cup from my half-desirable morning pot and looking around at the strewn toys, the disfigured rug, the empty juice cups, and the smashed peanut butter sandwiches. Having boys is a real adventure, I can assure you. They are so much like angels when they sleep, I don't want to wake them up. No really, don't wake my children up elephant couple upstairs. Before bedtime I have to fish out the juice box my two year old stuffed inside the sub-wolfer (I think that's what to call it?) and spray the growing yellow jacket nest on the balcony. And don't mention the never ending pile of laundry I swear I just washed yesterday. I can't imagine my mother ever going through these type of "mommy situations." Oh, in fact, I know she didn't.

First of all, my mother drinks tea. Yes, tea. Well. Actually it's more of a heavy sugar-milk concotion flavored with a tiny sachet of Earl Grey. I love Earl Gray. Not my mother's way though. How can a tea drinker possibly relate to a coffee drinker? She says caffeine makes you age badly. I say lack therefore makes everyone around you feel even worse than aging badly. Two very different kinds of mommies: The coffee drinking, sports car driving, non-recycling mommy, also known as myself... and..of course, the tea drinking, slow SUV driving, every dinner is out to eat kind of a mom, also described as mine.

My mother had only one child to raise: a non destructive, prissy, sparkly hot pink loving, Barbie kind of a daughter. I have two rough housing, hyper, toy throwing, food smashing, monster truck kind of sons. Not that's not a wonderful thing. It is. Because I cannot ever be blamed for screwing up my daughter since she does not even exist. See? It's simply really. Mothers mess up their daughters, fathers mess up their sons. I am free and clear, thank you very much.

On that note, my mother was responsible for making me neurotic, but not necessarily in a bad way. She taught me to be polite, respect your elders, and cuss out the %^&*!@#$ -#@$%^&*!@ woman at Wal-mart that almost hits your brand new Nissan Murano with her broken down mini-van in the parking lot. She taught me everything is sentimental, never donate your underwear, pay attention in math because it really is important AND useful, and how to use the value of a dollar plus a few hundred to buy every color of the cute new shirt in Express. My mom was wonderful. As a child the rules were easy: make a path for the housekeeper (maid was an ugly word) to come clean my room biweekly, once you use a towel once it is dirty, put it in the laundry chute and NOT the floor!, don't keep Barbies naked, and don't draw on the walls. I didn't even have to make my bed. I earned five dollars for emptying the silverware caddy in the dishwasher (leave the knives, they're too sharp) and never, EVER loaned my shoes out to admiring eyes. What a childhood.

Now I need coffee to muck through the morning, I have to make the beds (I don't get why, you just mess them up anyway), and I don't get five dollars for emptying the ENTIRE dishwasher. What gives? And so far, math has not helped me with much. Except to see how much flies out of my bank account every month. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Some days, I really wish mom's rules still applied to me. Her new rules aren't as cushy. And she lives 2500 miles away now, making it next to impossible to convince her to take me shopping and have dinner with me at The Hacienda. Or Red Robin. Or Gordon Biersch. Or yummier still, Three Margaritas. Hmm.

Thanks mom. I don't loan my shoes. And a towel used once IS dirty. And it doesn't ever go on the floor.