Janelle Evans

Oh the mundane jobs that have to be done; beds to be made, shirts that need ironing, the endless dishes that never seem to be done. When my kids were young I did it all. I had to. The fairy-mommy who magically picked up after me in the house I grew up in didn’t follow me into my married life. But as my children have gotten older, I’ve pushed more and more of those awful jobs onto them. I figure I’m teaching them the value of work, so no, I don’t feel bad. There will be no fairy-mommy for them either when they move out.

The latest of those evil jobs has been the kitty litter box. Nobody wants to do it, and each of them swears they were the one who cleaned the litter box last. But this last week, rather than fight with me, my oldest took a new approach when I told him to take care of the litter box.

He sighed, slumping his shoulders like he was being sent to an executioner, but then said, “I’ll go find my sister.”

I laughed at his pass-the-buck approach, and laughed even harder when his sister told him, “No.”

He hasn’t figured out yet that these kinds of jobs you don’t get out of until you have children of your own. 🙂

The loss of my mother has been heavy on my mind as of late. It’s been a little over three months since she passed, and I still find myself going to pick up the phone to share the highs and lows of my life with her. It’s that surreal for me that she’s gone. This last Saturday, my kids made me realize she’s not so far gone after all.

I awoke them early, handing out a verbal list of chores that needed to be done.

“But it’s Saturday,” they wined. “Why can’t we sleep in?”

The ‘why’ brought a smile to my face. “Because my mother never let me.”

Growing up, Saturdays were a day filled with work. There was always something to do, pull weeds, mow grass, scrub, paint, or sweep. But we didn’t do these jobs alone. My mom was the hardest working woman I knew. Unfortunately for my children, though I’ll always be grateful, a little of that fanaticism for clean rubbed off on me. I’m not sure I’ll ever completely measure up to the wonderful woman she was, but I no longer think turning into my mother would be such a bad thing.

I don’t know about you, but for me, shopping for clothes usually takes hours. It requires me to try on everything in the store in my size, only to find maybe one piece of clothing I don’t think looks absolutely horrendous on my body. So, as you might have guessed, I don’t do it very often. Shopping for my daughter, on the other hand, is loads of fun. Everything she puts on looks fantastic. Oh…to be eleven again.

This week, I took her to a pop-up boutique in a woman’s home. Her birthday was coming up soon, and the clothes on the on-line invitation looked like something she’d like to wear. As usual, everything she put on looked adorable, especially the print on this one particular dress. But it needed a belt.

No problem, I thought. A Ross store had recently opened in our small town. So of course we drove straight over after purchasing the dress. It wouldn’t be a very good birthday present if it wasn’t a complete one.

Unfortunately, the store had been massively picked over in the belt section. They had like three, and none of them were cute. I refused to give up. I said, “Let’s go look on the women’s dress rack. If we can find a belt we like, we’ll just take it off and give the dress to Goodwill.”

On the very first rack we find this wonderful belt, so we buy the dress without even looking at it. As soon as we get home, I take the belt off and toss the dress in a bag for Goodwill. And there is where it would have stayed, if my husband hadn’t come home and asked about the bag sitting on the counter.

“You’re just going to give it to Goodwill without trying it on?” He said, shocked.

“Yep,” I said. “I don’t even know what size it is.”

“Well, you should at least look at it.”

So, I roll my eyes and take the dress out of the bag. Uh, it’s surprising not ugly, and holy cow, the thing is in my size. When I tried on the dress, I looked downright awesome.

“Great!” My daughter said. “Now we’re going to have to fight over who gets to wear the belt.”

Oh, honey…yes—yes we are. 🙂

Maybe this is how I should have been shopping for myself all along.