Courtenay Brown

oops I mean Conversation with Mom.

Sal and her Tractor last summer

It seems that parental stress always goes up during the holiday season, regardless of whether your kids have flown the coop and/or have their own kids. At least, this is what my highly scientific experiment of “does my own personal mom always freakout at the holidays” has revealed to me…

Last week I called my mom the day after Thanksgiving, which was my own fault, because I already knew that she’d had 22 people over for turkey and food, so obviously calling during the aftermath was a big risk but I was having a bad day. “Hi Ma, sniffle sniff, I’m having a bad day because bla bla and other stuff too.”

“WELL,” she says, “OBVIOUSLY you are NOT HAPPY and we have KNOWN THIS…” (we have? i’m not?)(not sure what came next cause I put the phone down) “… and plus – are you still there or are you HANGING UP on me -” (ugh no but maybe I should be) “and you just need to SIT DOWN and MAKE a LIST about your PRIORITIES. Although, what do I know, it could be that you are just having a BAD DAY…”

I am indeed just having a bad day. That is how I prefaced this entire conversation that I should have known not to start/foist. At least now, a week later, I am laughing about it .

Then today we had some more gems courtesy of Sal! Our family is going to Hawaii for Christmas and we’ll be at Sunset Beach on the North Shore, which is going to be great, especially if we can get my mom to relax and enjoy herself.

“NOW, we need to talk about TRANSPORTATION. I am renting a car, and we have your brother’s car, but YOU and BEN need to be flexible with your WORKING OUT.” I know. We are going to ride our bikes up from Honolulu to Sunset so you guys don’t have to worry about driving us or our bikes up there and then we can ride to the pool. “Well. I don’t think you REALIZE that is a LONG and ARDOUS WAY and there are HILLS.” I do realize what the route is. It’s fine. It’s only like 50 miles or something. “Well, whatever. I don’t know why we are talking about this now.” You just said we needed to talk transportation…

Then she had to go. Like right now because she had to feed the horses and Polly was coming over to go for a walk and oh wait here she is driving up the driveway as we speak and whose dog is that running down the road?

But then I unleashed the magic words: wait Ma, don’t go, I have gossip! Do you have a second? “Ooo, yes, what is it? Of COURSE I have a second! Tell me!!”

I love my mom!