Best Mom Tip #166: Ask your mom about her childhood

My mother grew up below the poverty line on a cotton farm outside the town of Cartersville, Georgia.  While Leave It to Beaver was on TV across the nation, Mom went outside to the outhouse when the need arose.  My beloved Aunt Charlotte was 14 before they had indoor plumbing.  My grandfather ran the pipes himself.

On Christmas, Mom remembers how much she loved getting nuts and an orange in her stocking--oranges in winter were a rare treat.  She also got a box of chocolate covered cherries as her special gift from my grandfather.  As far as presents went, my mother remembers her bike as a wonderful gift.  My grandfather had repainted the tin roof of the house that year and my grandmother had recovered some vinyl chairs in the kitchen.  Mom watched Granddaddy repaint an old bicycle with the tin paint and then saw Grandmother cover the worn seat with the leftover vinyl.  On Christmas morning, out came her "new" bicycle and she loved it.  

Tomorrow morning my children will receive brand new toys bought from Target and Toys R Us.  They will open massive boxes containing 47 thousand twist ties so that the toys do not move into unattractive positions while in transit.  They will get a ridiculous amount of candy because when confronted with the tons of candy in the holiday section, 3 bags of miniature candy bars didn't seem like that much.  They are also all getting their own tiny flashlights in the hopes that they will stop carrying my emergency/handy weapon Maglite around. 

When I find myself getting caught up in the hassle-joy of 13 (actual number if counting class parties) different Christmas celebrations, I think about my mom growing up.  I know it wasn't perfect.  My mom graduated from a segregated high school and apparently spent childhood afternoons helping my great-grandmother stock condoms in the bathroom of the rest-stop-style store my great-grandparents ran until Granddaddy Virgil was fired for being drunk on the job.  So, you know, now seems better than that.  And besides, A Charlie Brown Christmas hadn't been written yet.  

But the simplicity of their Christmas celebrations circa 1953 resonate with me.  I think about making sure that my children understand what exactly we are celebrating.  I want them to know that on Christmas Day, Grace entered the world, not just American Girl Dolls and Muppets.  Although I do love the Muppets and bought 4 of them even though I only have 3 children.  I think about trying to remind myself to swim upstream against the tide of our pop culture with Santa and Christmas trees and enough wrapping paper to coat the world.  I think about trying to create memories that my children recount with as much love as my mother does when she shares her bicycle story.  

I think about a baby and a manger and a scared teenage girl just hoping she wasn't crazy to believe that God would do something amazing with her newborn child.  I think about my favorite sentiments from the Bible: Joy to the World, Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward Men. 

Merry Christmas.

Best Mom Tip #165: Trade in the kid's meal toy

I feed my kids fast food.  Not all the time, but often enough that they ask for it by name.  Their favorite, by a long shot, is Chick-fil-A.  Since we live in Atlanta, the home of the chicken sandwich, there is a Chick-fil-A every 4 1/2 feet.  They rival Starbucks for strip-mall corner dominance.  Which is my kids' second favorite place to go for nourishment.

They also like Schlotzsky's although they pronounce it "Sloch-key" and it seems to be tied to the cookie that comes with a kid's meal.  On a random note, there is a Schlotzsky's in what used to the Death Zone on the East Berlin side of the Berlin Wall.  Jay and I ate there once and I thought that seemed like one of the funniest screw-yous to communism that I'd ever seen.  There is an American fast food deli where once there were only guard towers and creepy Czech-made cars.  There is also a Starbucks.

My kids don't know any of that, however, because we do not take them to Europe because that would be miserable.  But if we did, they would ask to eat at one of the places whose logo they recognize from 500 yards.

To my credit, they don't really know what McDonald's is.  Someone referenced Mickey-D's the other day and Griffin asked, "What's McDonald's?"  Charlotte answered, "it's that place with the big yellow M and the scary clown."  I almost thought about contacting the McDonald's marketing department to tell them that they have failed.

My journeys to various fast food establishments have allowed me to discover one parent-pleasing tip:  You can trade in that stupid toy that comes with the kid's meal for something better.  At Chick-fil-A, for instance, you can get a kid's ice dream instead of the toy/book/whatever.  Don't get me wrong, it's not like I want to pump my kids full of sugar, but if one of them gets the book and one of them gets an ice cream that they can share, I don't have to give away 45 plastic-wrapped books every few months.  I also can be the nicest Mommy ever because I let them eat fast food AND there was ice cream.

Anyway, it's worth asking.  Sometimes I just eat the ice cream as my own reward for having taken that many kids to eat somewhere by myself.  Mmmmmm.....ice cream.