As a mother, you often forget to look at yourself in the mirror before leaving the house. Fortunately, so far I’ve remembered the “amazingly beautiful” hairdos my daughter has done for me BEFORE I went out in public. However, some mothers are not that fortunate (Don’t worry – my time will come!). Take my own mother and one of my fellow mommy friends for instance for a couple of instances when they exclaimed in disbelief,” Did my child just do that?!”
When I was about five, my younger sister was two, and my little brother was a newborn, my mother allowed my sister and me to do her makeup. To be fair, we asked her while she was napping, so she had no idea she had actually given us permission. In those days, pinks and purples were all the rage. We gathered her Mary Kay collection from her bathroom and proceeded to make her “beautiful.” We thought we had done a great job.
She wakes up in a panic after we had been done for a while and were back to playing with our dolls. She was running late to our baby brother’s doctor appointment. She gathered us all up as quickly as she could, and we raced to the clinic. At that point in our lives, we had little money, and we were on Medicaid. The doctor’s office was in a rougher part of town that was predominantly African-American. We were a group of white folk walking into that clinic.
As my mother used to tell it, she became indignant at all the people that were staring at her in the waiting room. She was convinced it was because we stood out as the only white family in the place. When the nurse came out to call us back, she stared at my mother as well. My mother blurted out, “Why are you all staring at me like I’m crazy?!” The nurse quietly came up and whispered in her ear, “Did you get a chance to look in the mirror before you left the house?” Turns out, my sister and I made our poor mother look like a bruised clown. She was mortified. She realized everyone was looking at all the colors on her face besides the white! It made for a great laugh over the years!
For a more modern day story, my friend and I were walking through Target one afternoon with our toddlers. Mine was in the seat of the cart; my friend’s daughter was standing on the back of the cart. The whole time we walk through the store, Madi kept telling my friend that it was “so breezy” and how cold she felt. Madi was wearing a cute little skirt, so we just brushed it off. Finally, one lady comes up to my friend and says, “Ma’am, I don’t think your daughter is wearing any underwear.” The mortification ensued! I have plenty of other stories about that little girl embarrassing her mommy, but I shall save those for another time.
The moral of the story is: Kids will always surprise you, often embarrass you, and make you the happiest moms in the world!
