With young children under your roof, time and patience can be difficult to find. To selfishly appease my guilt, I began hiding little notes in my kid’s backpacks, lunch boxes and library books. I stuffed them into the toes of athletic shoes or rolled in socks that would be unrolled before practice.
The little messages went something like this: “I love you…I’m proud. Good luck on your test. Go get ‘em…You’re special and always do your best.” When the notes first appeared, my children were thrilled. As they grew older, the hidden cards became something else.
“The notes are for babies,” my youngest daughter told me, rolling her eyes.
However, this note thing seemed to work both ways. Mariah began leaving me notes too, except hers to me were slightly different and always placed in the same place.
My purse.
A woman’s purse is a world all its own. If my kids needed something (usually money), they quickly learned it was easier to bring the purse to me than to burrow in it themselves. Since I took my purse to work every day, that’s where Mariah left her notes to me.
“Mom, I flunked my math test and things don’t look good”, or “Can I have a sleepover, I only want 22 girls”. Mariah placed these notes where I would find them knowing I would have all day to calm down or consider her request.
This child of mine is no dummy.
I left home early one morning after quarreling with Mariah the night before. My patience was thin, and I can’t remember what I said but I know my words were heavy because I could feel the weight of them myself. Sometimes being harsh is the only way to get a middle-schooler’s attention.
This time it felt different…
For the complete column, see this week’s edition of the Centralia Fireside Guard
