Pleated

As mothers, we all have moments we’re not proud of. Moments we wish we could erase from time and from our children’s memories.

My grandmother gave birth twelve times and raised eleven children. I think her children were spaced such that she never had more than nine in the home at one time. But NINE! Good Lord. My mom was the fifth born but was raised the fourth (the brother born third died in infancy.)

Yesterday, my mom, the girls and I went to a bridal shower for my cousin. It was lovely.

On the drive over there, my mom told me the story of when she learned how to use an iron to pleat pants.

She was perhaps nine years old and for some reason, there was no iron in their home. Her mother sent her to the house next door to iron her brother’s pants for church.

When my mom got back to their house and showed her mom the newly pressed pants, her mom said, “I want pleats!” And she sent her back to the neighbor’s to pleat those pants.

My mom didn’t understand what she meant by pleats and so she just ironed the pants flatter than ever.

When she arrived back at home her mother took a look at those pants and screeched, “I said I want them creased!” Then she yanked those trousers out of my mom’s nine-year-old hands and SHOWED her what she meant and where she meant it.

Off that girl went to crease those pants.

And my mom never once forgot what a crease was nor how to create on in a pair of dress slacks.

My mom and I laughed at the story and then I said, “Well, the poor woman had at least eight kids in the house. I get screechy with just two. Imagine how overwhelmed she must have been.”

My mom said she and her sisters often tell stories like that late at night when they’re all at their mom’s apartment. My grandma always feels bad that her daughters have these memories.

Mom and her sisters don’t tell these stories to make their mother feel bad. They remember them fondly and just think of them as growing moments.

When I was eleven years old, my younger brother, who was seven, and I stayed at home during the summers while my mom worked. My dad worked third shift, so he was asleep somewhere in the house while we played and made messes.

One afternoon my mom came home to an especially big mess and she sort of lost her mind for a few minutes.

After that afternoon, she never came home to a messy house while I was there. I might have been found racing around like a lunatic at 2:30 in preparation for her 3:15 arrival but she didn’t come home to dishes in the sink or toys on the floor or an unvacuumed carpet. I only had to be told once.

But even that memory isn’t told to be hurtful to my mom. I look upon it as a moment in time when I was taken out of my childish self-centeredness long enough to see that my actions affect others. It was a good thing.

Alyssa, ahhh, sweet little Alyssa. At seven, it appears she’s a bit tougher skinned than I was at eleven. Even at my screechiest, she doesn’t seem to be bothered when I tell her over and over and over again that she needs to pick up after herself, or just put her shoes in the closet, or stop throwing her socks in the corner of the living room.

Someday? Perhaps I’ll screech loud and long enough, but maybe not. I hope I can find a way to get through to her without a raised voice. But I’m beginning to see that perhaps a little screeching once in awhile (but not every day, hence our ‘no yelling days’) might not be such a bad thing in the grand scheme of things. I think I’ll stop beating myself up for losing it every so often.