Jelly Mom
Three Sounds That Make Mom
Run
ŠLisa Barker
(An excerpt from Just Because Your Kids Drive
You Insane...Doesn't Mean
You Are A Bad Parent!)
There are only three sounds that send a full-grown mother
running.
They are:
ˇ Screams of terror and pain
ˇ Silence
ˇ Yakking
Screams of terror and pain. These screams stand out among
all the
other screams and cries children make. A scream of terror or
pain is a
very primal scream that, no matter what a mom is doing, it
seizes her
hips, rotates her toward the source and compels her legs to
start running.
There’s just a BIG difference in a scream like this that
sets it a
part from all others. In fact a mom can probably tell you
upon hearing
the very first note just what the injury or fright entails.
And there is always a child waiting for her arrival because
Mom is the
ONLY one that can help as far as the child is concerned. It
doesn’t
matter how old the child is, this is a job for Mom alone.
Silence. Any good mom worth her salt will tell you that the
sound of
silence is a sound worthy of panic. Whether she has one
child or a
dozen, the minute the house, or the yard or the street
suddenly goes quiet,
Mom knows that SOMEBODY is up to no good and she is summoned
by the
silence and MUST discover the reason for it.
The sound of silence is very much like the sound of guilt,
something
that mothers are very adept at interpreting since they live
with their
own abundant supply and have plenty to dish out. If only
children
realized that silence gives away their misdeeds, they could
get away with so
much more.
In fact, if they’d just bicker and babble while they were up
to no
good, a parent would never be the wiser. But children are
not yet able
to master doing two things at one time, and that is
completely in a
mom’s favor.
Yakking. Whether it’s a child or a pet, a mom can hear the
sound of
upchucking from a dead sleep or in the middle of any racket.
The urge
is always to grab a towel and run while she yells for
everyone to clear
the room so she can isolate the yakker and the messy
results.
You don’t want pets or little ones poking around
inquisitively when
there is an active yakker in the house.
And yet, there’s always an audience with at least one
informant that
stands and gawks and states the obvious through the whole
ordeal:
Mom, the cat is yakking!
Mom the cat yakked!
Eew! Mom, the baby is touching it!
Mom, you’re cleaning that yak, huh?
Wow, what a mess….
Needless to say, all this is why, as much as a mother
complains from
time to time, the truth is that the sound of babbling,
squawking and
bickering is music to a mom’s ears. It means that all is
well!
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Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker, author of "Just
Because Your
Kids Drive You Insane...Doesn't Mean You Are A Bad Parent!"
and
syndicated through Martin-Ola Press/Parent To Parent. To
publish Jelly Mom,
buy
the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com.