Mother knows best
2013-04-30
Author: Mimi Burleson
 

It’s inevitable. No matter how much we try to avoid it, we eventually turn into our mothers. Maybe not completely, but we definitely take on traits – the traits that we absolutely despised as kids.

It doesn’t happen overnight. She sneaks into our brains bit by bit, and then all of a sudden the words that come out of our mouths hit us across the forehead with a big whack. We immediately want to take it back. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN??

“Because I said so!”

“Don’t make me come in there!”

They just roll off the tongue so easily. It’s unavoidable.

I recently received the biggest whack across my forehead
to-date. My son has a newfound love of changing clothes. ALL. DAY. LONG. An outfit for breakfast and one for mid-morning; a new outfit for going outside to play, then a different one for each activity. Skateboarding calls for skateboarding shoes and a skateboarding hat, but that’s not acceptable for jumping on the trampoline, so here we go again. When we play soccer, we need soccer shoes and soccer shorts, which must be different from the trampoline attire. Did you know there was special clothing needed for jumping on the trampoline? Me neither. In the evenings, it’s baseball attire. You have to give him credit for consistency, because baseball is always at 5 p.m. And then we end the day with a clean set of pajamas.

The first day of Operation Outfit was funny. “Hilarious. My child is awesome.” Day 2, it’s cute. “Oh look, isn’t my child so creative?” By Day 5 it’s lost its charm and by Day 10 we want to pull out our hair. As I’m standing in a sea of clothes trying to decipher what is clean and what can’t be worn again, the clichés just start flowing.

“Every time you change outfits, that’s one more thing I have to wash. Do you know how much laundry this is? Things are going to start changing around here, son. You are going to have to do your own laundry!”

Darn you, Mother, he’s four. He can’t even reach the top of the washer.

Each time I say these things, I roll my eyes, just like I did when I was 12 years old. How unoriginal. Can’t I come up with anything better to say? But the clichés always win. “Mother knows best.”

Mimi Burleson lives in Georgetown with her husband and four-year-old fashionisto son.

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