Giggles and Church don't mix -writing prompt

When my sister and I were young we would have to attend Catholic Church with my mother. We got the typical warning “you better behave….or else!!” the OR ELSE was code for …..If you act up you will see the fate of your dads’ belt on your backside!  

As a child sitting through a catholic service it could be at times be ruthless. Hard pews, the smell of jean na’te pouring out of the pores of the old lady sitting in front of us, babies crying, stand up-sit down-kneel-stand up…..time for prayer.  At this time we would have to recite the “Our Father”, I would grab my sisters’ hand and then ………..the game began.  She would squeeze my hand, I would squeeze back harder and we would go back and forth until someone cracked or …….we ended up squeezing someone else’s hand on accident. Sometimes one of us would squeeze so hard that a little “yelp” would peep out of our mouth and we would get that look…………….you know that look, it’s the same “I’m going to give you something to cry about if you don’t knock it off” look we give our own children. Even though our game would stop we continued to stare each other down and normally I would be the one that couldn’t keep from giggling and then the giggling would turn into that laughter that I would try to hold in until I couldn’t hold it in any longer and then the tears would come and my stomach would hurt all the while knowing my fate was to see the fate of the belt or hear those 2 all time common words. “YOU’RE GROUNDED”

ODE to Mommy Dearest

In a recent writing prompt we were told to write about a memory and the one that sticks out in my head right now is one when I was about 6 years old ......now before I begin this isn't a happy, special memory. If you have followed me for awhile you have read my ups and downs with my parents since I was young, but through the dysfunction of my relationships with them I have stopped the cycle with my own children.

At the time, I was having fun swimming in our Jacuzzi when my mother came out and told me that I needed to get out because my father was going to be bringing some people over to tend to our backyard. This meant 2 things to me as a 6 year old girl 1. Fun time was over 2. THOSE people were coming over again.

I looked at my mom and mumbled

“I wish that they would go back where they came from”

With a stern look my mom replied

“ what did you say!!”

My little bratty self repeated myself . This was my first lesson in “think before you speak”

She then boldly said “ well then that would mean your grandmother and I would have to go back”

I began to argue the fact that my grandmother and mom were NOT the same as them and that they didn’t live on San Fernando Blvd or come from across the border. I remember having this conversation with my mom and wondering why she was making such a big deal about this and why did she have to bring my grandmother into this conversation. I just wanted to continue swimming!!

She then told me that I had hurt her feelings and would have to answer to my father. “WHAT”….I jumped out of the Jacuzzi and stomped behind my mom wondering why I had to answer my father. The answer I got just baffled me and still baffles me to this day. She said “I’m not going to talk to you, you will have to go to your father if you need anything” she  turned and went on her pouty way. There I stood sopping wet wondering what the heck just happened.

“my mom is ignoring me because I didn’t want the dirty old men to come and disturb my swim while they work in the backyard?”.  I went to my dad and asked why mom was pouting and he told me that I hurt her feelings. “you got to be kidding me !” I thought.  I began to tell my father that those men that he picks up on the blvd are dirty and I just wanted them to go back where they came from and that grandma and mom were NOT from the streets of San Fernando or Mexico.  My dad just told me to go and tell my mom sorry.

So there I stood in my wet bathing suit staring at the men tending to our backyard confused at what just transpired and to make things even more interesting …..my mother didn’t talk to me for a week!!

My  mother ignored me , a six year old little girl who didn’t know any better for a week because I didn’t understand why these men were on the streets looking for work. She never sat me down to make me understand or have a clearer heart for these men who are trying to earn money for their families. She made this about her….not about correcting her misguided 6 year old.

My Adventure at 15 - Writing Prompt

A brat ? yes….rebellious I wasn’t but I wanted to make a point. The point being that mommy and daddy dearest needed loosen their parental reigns just a bit  and if they were going to already categorize me as a “partier, alcoholic and a wild child” then why not just jump right into what they thought me to be. Right??  Now, I assume they got this stupid assumption of me when I was 15, my room covered in NKOTB posters and from time to time I listened to INXS and Guns and Roses. Now…..I was still that silly teenage girl who cried at the drop of a hat when she saw Joey,Donnie,Danny,Jordan and John  on T.V but I guess because I also listened to the hair band/rockish type of bands I was now in their heads was this out of control “ wild child” and I do remember the first time that I came home from hanging out with friends and told to come straight to my father’s room to “have a talk” next thing I know he’s giving me a sobriety test. Ok, I wasn’t the type to hit their bar cabinet and drink some vodka and fill it up with water….I may have taken a few sips of a wine cooler but back in the day I thought that  was daring. It wasn’t until after the uncalled sobriety test and lecture that I just thought “heck I must be missing out"; there was nothing that I could do to prove to my parents that I wasn’t what they thought me to be. I had already been thrown into the “bad child” category a long time ago.  

It was sophomore year and my best friend and I were just at our wits end with our parents. Of course “they didn’t understand” or wanted to understand what we were going through. I guess that’s why Dennine and I gravitated towards one another just because our parents refused to let us have some sort of life….a teenage life, but her and I had that LABEL of “bad child”.  Due to this label bestowed on us we jumped right in….we started to ditch school and sneak out of the house to discover what we were being held captive of. Most of the time we snuck over to each other’s homes and watched VHS movies or episodes of Jerry Springer….nothing too wild and crazy. This was our way of “showing them”…..but in “showing them” our grades dropped and notices came home and of course our parents “talked” and realized that we had been ditching classes. So the call was made and Dennine and I were no longer to have the same class schedules or hang out together.  

Of course we weren’t going to HAVE that and we were really going to SHOW them!!  So around midnight I jumped the back fence and met up with Dennine and her boyfriend. We all stayed in a hotel room just going over “our plan” for this new independence. In a way I think we wanted our parents to “see what they were missing” to come together and realize that we weren’t BAD we just wanted this label to be taken off and their actions led us to where we were at…..in a seedy motel room. Morning came and I knew by this time my father would have had reported to his cop friends that his daughter and friend went missing, I could only imagine my mother just putting on this crying act for everyone to see “ohhhh how could the Lord do this to me”. She always blamed the Lord for any hardship done to her…..including my pregnancy (but that’s another story). 

For a couple days we had just roamed our local streets, the Laundromat being our safe haven. We would just sit and think about what we had done and what we were going to do. We decided later that evening to call the Runaway hotline and get some advice, and as we were dialing the number we heard “Hey girls!” As we turned around we noticed it was her father. He didn’t seem all that upset, unlike the wrath that was to come when I got home. He reached for his brick sized phone and called Dennines mom (they were separated). At this time her mother and step father were at my home and from what we were told my mother let out a huge cry “we found them we found them”. Hmmmm no you didn’t Dennines dad found us. He then told them that he was going to take us out to eat but that was quickly changed and we had to come home ASAP. Her father shrugged and  said a few words to us but I don’t recall it being a lecture, if I remember right he seemed to understand our rebellious act.  

As we entered the house we were told to go directly to the table where there was a plate of bread and two glasses of water. “wow” ok…..my dad was REALLY playing his role as cop!! Did this scare us? No I remember us talking about this later on and thinking it was hilarious. We sat through their lecture, accusations, name calling and sentence …Dennine was told that she was going to go live with her father in Los Angeles and I was grounded for eternity which was nothing different from before. The following week I was taken to a gynecologist to make sure that I was still a virgin. 

I often ask myself if I had to do it all over again would I? Probably no,t because it didn’t change the fact of my parents perception of me. Nothing I could have done before my adventure or after would make them see me the way they saw my sister. She was the IT child, not me. …..and it took me until my late 30’s to realize this.  What I learned from all this though was I will not label my children in any negative way…… “Troubled”, “bad child”, “waste of a human”, are titles that should never be bestowed on a child. 

If Mommy Dearest wrote a blog -Writing Prompt

This weeks Writing Prompt From

:  

If my Mom were a blogger

I would assume she would take the not so honest approach about her life and go for the “feel sorry for me” tactic. Her “About Me “ would probably go something like this:

(and while you read this I'm the oldest of my sister and I)

ABOUT ME: 

Unhappily married for 35 + years, newly retired, mother of 2 girls and grandmother of 7 kids.

My wonderful life

Easter is just around the corner, this may be one of my very last Easters considering I’m getting up there in age so it will be just me and my husband on that glorious day. My youngest daughter and her family will be spending the holiday with her in-laws, I guess that’s ok considering it’s “their turn” and my oldest well, she’s in California and I don’t speak to her much so I’m not sure what her plans are. I should call my grandkids I haven’t talked to them in ages ; oh yeah I almost forgot I do have 2 new grandkids …..but again I think my grandkids should call me I am their grandma and who knows this may be my last Easter!

Well, today is another cold day. I’m so tired of this dreaded weather, I can’t stand this place and Jack is never here he’s always gone playing card games at that damn smoky bar.  I swear if it wasn’t for his retirement plan and pension I would have left him a long time ago when he had his little fling with that blonde years ago. My mother  always said I have to take care of myself you know!! So I play the role of happy wife when we are at family events.  If it were up to me I would move to Illnois to be closer to my daughter and my two adorable grandsons, my daughter and I  have the best relationship. I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of her. She’s married, lives in the suburbs, has her own business, she’s involved in her community and is a wonderful mother to her 2 little boys. She has always had it together unlike my oldest daughter……..my husband and I have pretty much written her off years ago. My youngest as always been successful in all that she does and we are so proud of her!

~ohhhh my dang knee~ if it’s not my back it has to be something and now my knee is killing me. I better call and set up an appointment to get that checked. I just found out my results for my recent visit to the doctors earlier this week……there was no hole in my throat. I swear there was something there….but I got a clean bill of health from my doctor. My oldest  thinks I’m a hypochondriac but it’s not my fault that I get sick every other day and have to make an appt to see my doctor. I’m not getting any younger and you can’t trust these doctors now a day, they are always missing something.

 Till next time 

Mommy Dearest  

All Grown Up - Writing Prompt

The moment I realized I was a grown up

You would think it would have been when I was 17 and became a mother for the first time or when I was 20, married and had a second child, but in all reality I didn’t feel that I was grown up and ready to face the world until I was 22 heading for a divorce and pregnant …again. 

Now I had a lot to think about. Do I stay in this highly dysfunctional marriage and raise our 3 kids or do I admit defeat and get a divorce and put on the hat of “single mom”. I knew it would be hard but I couldn’t have my children grow up with us as their examples of how a marriage is suppose to be. I know what it’s like to have dysfunctional parents as my examples and well……………my children deserved to grow up with happy parents even if their parents lived in different houses.

I knew things would be difficult. I was now raising 2 little girls and a little guy on the way; by myself and now it was seriously time to GROW up.  I moved out of state to be closer to my family but even though they were in the next town over, it was me taking care of the little ones and at times taking on 2 jobs just to make things work. I remember the extreme satisfaction I had when I fixed the leak from under the  bathroom sink, mowed my own yard and shoveled  the snow off my drive way. I had to be the MAN of the house and tend to things in the house and be the MOM and watch over my children.

Don’t get me wrong……it wasn’t easy but it was definitely during that time in my life that I knew that I have truly grown up!

You stole what!?! Spill it! (writing prompt 4)

OK, I admit it…..I did it, but I couldn’t resist this colorful box!!  While I was contemplating my plan to make this box my own I could only imagine what amazing creations I could do with what was inside this box.  I looked down the aisle…..no one so I grabbed the box of Crayola crayons and stuffed it into my purse. 

Now mind you, I didn’t go for the tiny 8 pack. I went for the box of 24!!! Maybe it was the added on sharpener in the back of the box that sold me but I was going to go big!!  After I concealed my treasure, I ran back to my mother and continued our grocery shopping trip.

When we got home I quickly went to my room and took out MY box of crayons, opened them up and was just amazed at all the in tacked crayons because the crayons in my crayon box were broken, wrappers taken off or just plain…………..used.  As I was in the middle of creating a crayon masterpiece my mother came in looked at the box of crayons and asked “where did you get those?”. Crap, I didn’t plan out an alibi at all………..so the only thing my 7yr old pony tailed self could come up with is that it was a party favor from a party we had at school for someone’s birthday. Now, maybe if I would have thrown in a name, yeah that would probably end up believable…but she wasn’t buying it. So she brought me to the kitchen table with evidence in tow and had my father  do the interrogation. Geez, you would have thought he would have gone a little easy on me considering I was only 7 yrs old and not some of his REAL criminals he arrested earlier that day,  but he got the truth out of me…..even my crocodile tears didn’t save me.

So I seriously thought that was it. I told the truth so give me back the crayons. No such luck!! My mom grabbed me and the stolen box of crayola crayons and took us back to the store where I had to confess my thievery to the manager. Yeah, I had to endure a lengthy talk about right and wrong all the while I thought  to myself  “dude you need to steal some gum your breath stinks”.  

I went home that night empty handed and was sent straight to my room……………grounded of course.

 So now that I confessed.....what did you steal?

Writing Prompt 1

I recently came across a really great blog called “Mama’s Losin it”….with all her writing prompts I’ve decided to incorporate one question per week. 

Writing Prompt 1. 

Ask a loved one to use 6 descriptive words to describe you and report your findings. How well do they know you?

I’ve decided to ask more than just one loved one and ask 3…which are my oldest children, I would have asked the Misters kids but I can only imagine their 6 descriptive words (wicked step mom, not my mom, who cares) ,so last night I asked my son to come up with 6 words that describe me….he just gave me this look like “is there a catch?”. I made sure that he knew this was part of my blog exercise so he will not get in trouble, grounded or hurt my feelings. 

14 year old (son):

Dog lover, overly protective (meaning the computer), ….in his words “wants everything to be perfect”…you mean anal or structured?? I asked. …."a little bit of both", pushy (like right now when I’m asking for six things about me), Funny, caring, hard worker. 

Then it came to ask my 17 year old…..she quickly came up with 6 things……but I have a feeling if I asked today she’d come up with a total different set of 6 words…..one being  the big B word, which would just end her up being grounded. I just don’t think she needed to sleep in any longer …..geez it was 1pm already!!

17 year old daughter : 

Pretty, fun, protective,  hard worker,  animal lover, artistic (writing) 

I then texted my daughter in college to come up with 6 questions…..she told me that she didn’t want to play this game. I explained it wasn’t a game and she wouldn’t get in trouble ……I told her that I just needed 6 words, not 6 sentences or paragraphs.

College daugther: 

Planner , dreamer, perceptive, hopeful, organized, motherly

so overall nothing shocked me......I know that i can be over protective at times but what parents isn't.

.....Go ahead and try this writing prompt and see what you come up with!!!