Award From Our Sponsor

"Oh...I'm not going to win. I'll never even get nominated. I'm not what they are looking for."

Just what am I talking about...again? Why, the Mother's Day contest the Montgomery Advertiser is running. Oh, it's not that I am not a good mom...I'm just not the "typical" mom.

Personally, I think I'm the 2nd best mom there ever was...okay...maybe the 3rd...14th...337th? I would like to have had me as a mom...if I didn't have my Mom, that is. She never won any "Best Mom" contests either. We never nominated her...I never did. She just wasn't "typical" enough. Mothers who don't fit that "cookie-baking cutter" image don't typically win these awards...so typically no one bothers to nominate them to begin with.

I don't bake cookies, I don't hang around at the school, I don't run the local chapter of the Girl Scout Troop, I don't have dinner on the table at 5:30 every nite. Not saying at all those aren't admirable qualities...just saying I don't do them. I do, however, watch my kids like a hawk...no panel of toy watchers ever had to tell me which toy they could or couldn't play with...as I WATCHED them. They never got into any cleaning products or ate any plants or sat in the cat litter box chowing down...as I WATCHED them. They were awake...I was awake. They crawled where they weren't supposed to crawl...I moved them back. My daughter is almost 11 and I still hold her hand in the parking lot and in a lot of stores. When my son started driving and drove himself to college...he called me when he got there - he called me when he left. Call it overprotective...but I called my mother each time I went somewhere out of town (even overnite Atlanta trips)...and I called her upon my return. Just because one day I became an adult didn't mean she stopped worrying. I knew she worried...I grew up but never stopped being her child. It didn't hurt me to call...and I'd give nearly anything to be able to call her now. You see, she died Halloween, 1999.

She never baked cookies either...never hung out at school...never did those other things...but she was always there. I told her everything...oh yeah...EVERYTHING. She was my best friend. She rode bikes with me when I was a kid...she jumped rope with me when I learned...she tagged along to the mall with me when I got my driver's license...she knew who it was when I played Jethro Tull, U2, or Peter Gabriel...she even went to a Genesis concert with me in Philadelphia...and knew the songs. All the younger people in line were amazed..."You LIKE this music?? Wow, I wish MY mom would listen to the stuff I like...she'd never come to a concert." She wasn't just 20 years older than me either...she had me when she was 42...there was a definite age gap there. She didn't see it...neither did I. You see, she wasn't your "typical mom". And she never won any awards.

So...I sit back, content that my 18-year-old son still kisses me goodnite, still wants me to play video games with him, still bothers the heck out of me with the songs he listens to...and doesn't get all bent out of shape to have me be seen in the same car as him. We joke around ALL the time...and can put those MST3K people to shame ANY day when we parody a movie or television show. In fact he's calling me now to come in his room to look at something. How many parents of 18-year-olds can boast that? I'm also content that my daughter talks to me constantly about Border Collies and Papillon dogs that she sooooooo wants to get one day...and a whole bunch of other things I won't get into (hey, I have been known to ramble a tad).

I am also content that, like my mother, I will never win a Mother's Day award.