Reminders

Advice from Shakespeare's Hamlet:
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend...
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!

Got up early today to drop off big kid at the school for a Cross Country race (raining, 43 degrees). Since neither parent is going with him, I‘m going through the list of do-you-have-now-remembers with him as he’s sliding across the wood floors, halfway listening, singing under his breath while totally oblivious to my neurotic packing & rechecking. I finally determine that yes, he probably has everything he needs (and a little more) and has at least heard 27% of what I’ve said. So as I hustle him out the door, he says, “Mom, you forgot my encouragement speech.” I look at him blankly. “You know, the one dad always gives me.” And for a split second I have the urge to say, “Eman-run your ass off!” But I push the evil wordy-dird imp (who roams around my head like a chimp on crack) back into its box. We just don’t have time for all the ‘splaining and prayin’ that the puritanical big kid would require if he heard his mother deliberately say a wordy-dird (he understands I crack under pressure and can’t be held accountable for every slip up-and he's not fool enough to call me out on these occasions). So after a moment's hesitation, inspiration kicks into overdrive and I proclaim, “I want you to listen!….. and ….remember!…..and don’t!…. and you’d better!….So when…!…And lastly... Finally...!” During this speech I call upon centuries of time honored mother wisdom that would make all of womankind PROUD. No mother who has ever sent off a son could have done better. So after seven rousing minutes of this passionate entreaty, he looks at me and says, “Dad, does a better job at this than you do.”

...Next time, I’m gonna tell him, “Eman-run your ass off!”