A Teen, A Pair of Perfect Pants, and a Dream...

Many of my friends know that I have been a florist since the fine young age of 14.  However, not many of my friends know how or why I enter the work force at such a young age.  It is a glamorous story filled with a stubborn middle school girl, a pair of Girbaud Jeans,
 and a mom who was smart enough not to buy them for me.
First for those of you not blessed enough to have been around when then jeans were popular, let me explain my madness.  These were the cool kids jeans, they had a peculiar cut at the waist, they made your bottom look insane, and the most detail  of all, was a white label perched square in the middle of the where the pants zipped together. These were the Mecca of cool, and I wanted a pair more like young boys of my time wanted a pair of Air Jordans.  There was nothing that was going to stop me from rocking a pair of my very own Girbaud jeans, nothing except a mom who refused to spend "$80.00 on a pair of jeans with a stupid white tag on the crotch!" Her words not mine, I could see the value in the perfectly placed tag of glory.  When I approached my mother with all of my reasons that buying these pants would be surly one of the best decisions of her life, I was met with an abrupt. " If you want to spend $80.00 on a pair of pants, it is time for you to get a job and see if they are worth it too you."
So here I was..
14.
No job.
No money.
No Car, and very worst of all..
No Girbauds...
How was the world ever going to go on? 

I was at a crossroads, so I did what any self respecting teenager would do, I walked into the first place I could find with a "Now Hiring" sign which just happened to be a Flowerpatch across the street from the Old Jordan High, and begged for a job that I knew nothing about, but was willing to learn as long as it would lead to a paycheck and a pair of  magical pants. 
So here I am 18 years later.
I got the pants, and yes my friends, they were as wonderful as I had always imagined.

Now you might ask, what does this have to do with a picture of one of my children showing the other  how to mow a perfect diagonal line in the grass, just the way mom likes it. 
I say, it has everything.
My mom taught me how to work from a young age, and I have in turn tried to teach my kids that they can have anything they want as long as they are willing to work for it. Give your children something to work for, show them how to work, and then celebrate when they get their own set of magic pants, and even better, their own  sense of what they can and can not do on their own.

Where Did I Put That Instruction Manual Again?

As a mother of three boys and one girl, plus an ever changing number of foster kids, I cannot even begin to put a number on the amount of times I have laid on our bathroom floor trying to comfort one sick child in one arm, while at the same time yelling to the other boys to "QUIET DOWN!! Can't they obviously see we are sick in here?," While in the other arm trying to help another " I forgot I have a book report due tomorrow" child attempt to kindly and patiently finish their last minute homework. All the while being distracted with the thought that, perhaps yelling at the boys to quiet down, was not my most well thought out and effective mom move as the thundering stampede that is

Undoubtedly a good game of cop and robber is getting closer and closer to the barricade I am attempting to create in our now lovely smelling, and cozy little bathroom.

It is in these moments, that I often wonder, where in the world did I put that instruction manual for these kids again?

Oh wait that’s right...

I never got one!!!

I guess mine must still be on back order and I say waving my fist to the sky, "  and it seems as if no one is in too much of a hurry to fill my repeated requests for copies!"

Hopefully if you are reading this, you are too, going down the same road without a specialized book of instructions as to the best ways to raise each one of our individual children to be happy, and somewhat sane, successful adults.

Hopefully you, like me, wake up each day, and pray that your children won't catch on to the fact that you have absolutely no idea what you are doing, but have become an expert at sporting the "all mighty mom" knows all poker face.

I am dedicating this blog to those of us who are doing the best we can, and every now and then just need a good laugh and a pat on the shoulder letting us know that doing the best we can, just happens to be, just enough.

My purpose in writing this blog is to make you smile, make you laugh out loud, and to make you confident that the job you are doing as a mother is nothing short of a miracle every day. Once a week I will be sharing a funny story and hopefully sharing some of my favorite parenting and teaching tricks that I have learned and am learning, along the way. Please, if you have some parenting nugget of genius, share it here. Let’s see if we can help get some of those backordered instruction manuals out of production, and on the shelves.

Enjoy.....