Becoming Mother

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, I am my mother after all!"

... This is written on a jewelry box that was given to me. At the time I thought, "but I am SO not my mother!"

Ashley here, folks! I wanted to talk to you all about my mom. Shannon and Kailly know and love her well. She has adopted several of my friends, and I'm sure they will all get a chuckle out of this, just as much as I do! :)

In my twenties, I have learned that I not only look like my mother, I kind of am my mother. Sometimes it feels like a bad thing, sometimes it feels like a good thing! No offense, mom! But, seriously, sometimes the things that come out of my mouth just give me the chills and I think (and sometimes say), "oh dear god, that sounded just like my mom." Even MH has caught me and said the same thing! For a good chunk of my life, I was told that I was so much like my father... I looked like him, acted like him... I could see the resemblances. And I didn't mind. You see, I'm a middle child. So growing up, I was constantly battling with who I wanted to play with or be like: my girly girl older sister or my tom boy younger sister - notice I did not say little; she is not my "little" sister. Hehe! Anyway, being told that I was like my dad was okay with me, because I didn't always want to be a girly girl! So when I entered my teen years and started to hear, "oh my gosh, you look so much like your mom!", I would deny it. "Ugh... I do not!" As I progressed through my teens, Middle School and High School, I heard it even more. In fact, it got to a point where if my mom was at my school to pick me up for whatever reason, they knew she was there for me! So, eventually, my response turned from "ugh... I do not!", into "yeah... I know." Still... I was resistant.

I fought with my mom a lot. I'm very stubborn and can be quite loud... I like to say I get my volume from my dad. As a matter of fact, my mom let the orthodontist know that my small mouth meant nothing because "oh that's okay, because she makes up for it with volume". "Ugh... Moooom!" Back on topic... I fought with my mom, resisted her personality and found her to be just incredibly anal-retentive. It made me crazy! She always wanted my bedroom floor to be "spotless", my closet to be "neat and tidy" and for everything in my room to "have a home/proper place". Sooo overbearing, right? Haha...wrong. I just had to be right. But I never was. Not once. But I didn't realize this until I was in college and no longer living at home.

Once I was on my own, I realized that all of those things that my mom used to say to me, all her methods of maintaining things and organizing that used to drive me crazy, had actually been burned into my brain, never to leave. I definitely fought my mom less when I was in college, but I was still resistant to being like her. I think all girls are like this... We want to be our own person. A lot of times we say, "I will never be like my mother!" However, a lot of the time, as is my case, we end being exactly the same. Just this morning, I thought of something that I had to share with my mom.

... Last week I started going through my closet and dresser drawers to get rid of all of my maternity clothes, and realized that I needed to pull out my Spring/Summer clothes! This was a tradition in our house growing up! It happened every spring and every fall. We would pull out the clothes for the new seasons, and box up the clothes of the previous seasons. I honestly thought everyone did this until I met and lived with my husband. Anyway, I started to pull everything out and make piles of "maternity", "too small", and "put out/wearable". MH's grandma re-finished the dresser that I grew up with and it was initially intended for C's nursery, but the dresser that MH and I were sharing was just too small, so we swapped. So, moving clothes in and out of my childhood dresser, put me in a major "flashback" mode. I suddenly remembered sitting on the floor of the room in the house that I grew up in and going through my dresser drawers to get rid of old/unusable stuff and replace it with all of the things for spring and summer time. I told my mom about how I loved doing this, because it always felt like "Ahhh.... Fresh start", with everything organized and in a proper place. Gah! Even THAT is something my mom would say! ;) She told me that she was so happy to hear that, because I always seemed to fight her on it. I said "I know. But notice how I always seemed to take the longest to get it done? I never wanted to DO it, but once I got started, I actually enjoyed it!" You see? I am my mother. I probably always have been.

I now regularly employ mother's methods of dealing with a lot of things: conflict - maintaining a silent stubbornness until YOU figure out you were wrong all along; organizing my house - "[MH], everything needs to have a home! Everything should have a proper place". Even my mannerisms and expressions seem to mirror my mom. Now, I am a mother. And I'm sure my son will face a time or two when he hears, "you are so much like your mother!" And I'm sure he will cringe. And I will smile, knowing that it'll only be a matter of time before he realizes that it's the biggest compliment in the world. Because, really... I am my mother. I probably always have been. And I think she kinda rocks. :)

Well, I hope you had a lovely Thursday and that your Friday is simply splendid!
- Ashley