Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Not a Morning Person...friendly stranger...a towhead...

(originally posted on fishbowlinsider yahoo!group 8/9/05)
My kids BOTH woke up at 6am this morning. Most mornings my son wakes up at 6am like clockwork, but my daughter won't wake up till 7:30-9am. For as long as I can remember I have NEVER been a morning person. In High School I had early morning seminary. 6am every day. Nobody in my family would talk to me until I had a glass of orange juice. At College I had early morning Pep Band, that was at 7am, wasn't it? The beginning of every year my mom would warn my roommates not to talk to me till I had a glass of orange juice and if they really felt the need to talk to me in the morning to hand me a glass of O.J. or be warned of the repercussions. My mom also felt the need to warn my husband of this little tactic when we got married. ...I don't like mornings... My job in Phoenix allowed me to sleep in. My office hours were 9am-6pm. A wonderful schedule, I never had to drive in rush hour traffic! But here in lies the problem, nobody ever warned me that I would have kids that would wake up at 6am every day. That no matter how late they go to bed they will still wake up at 6am. I have to try very hard to bite my tongue while preparing breakfast...Today we started on our morning walk at 7am. And in hopes to keep them from getting bored, went a different direction. We went south and then followed the bike trail around the golf course. About 5 minutes after getting started I passed an older gentleman. Really nice old guy, said "Good Day to Ya" or something like that. I smiled said "Good morning" and continued on down the road. About an hour later, 15 minutes or so from my house, I was about to pass this same older gentleman. I said "Good Morning" again, but this time he stopped, removed his headphones and said to me "I hope you're not doing housework all day too". I stopped walking also, smiled and said "Ya, I do." We chatted for a few minutes, about our typical walking distances, and how far we think we walked this morning. I think he was impressed with the amount of distance I had covered since the last time I passed him especially pushing my two little ones in the stroller. I hope I run into him again some morning... Nice old grandpa...I was thinking about something I had read in one of Proud Mum's blogs one day. Asking the question "Am I not a good mother, do I look blind?" Or something like that... :-) She was amazed at the number of people that would stop her on the street and point out to her like she didn't already know, "Your son has brilliantly RED hair!" And I'm sure she's thinking sarcastically "oh no, I must have misplaced my baby with someone elses"... This brought me to thinking about all the amazing silly observations people make for me as well. Anywhere I go people stop me and say something about my son's bright white blonde hair. And of course his blue (almost gray) eyes. They then look at my daughter and say "wow what blue eyes she has too". I smile, nod, and say Thank you. And then mutter under my breath as I walk away "Geez haven't you ever seen a towhead or blue eyes before?" My favorite comment that I receive from perfect strangers is "Is he yours? Where did he get that hair? You aren't blonde, or are you?!?" So then I have to go into an explanation of how my son is a perfect carbon copy of my husband when he was young. They say "oh I see" and walk away but you can see the thoughts going through their heads that they don't quite want to believe me. We have noticed when we're at the mall other parents with a towheaded child will swerve in order to seek us out. When this started happening it occurred to us, "Oh ya, we live in New Mexico, a towhead ISN'T that common here", which is why all these parents of little blonde haired children seek each other out. We feel we have this common bond that we must share. We will have a giggle now when people stop us to comment on our son's hair and eyes.When we are in Utah visiting we point out all the towheads to each other. Then remember there ARE probably more here. It like when I was ar Ricks, I would get so excited when I would see a Washington License Plate, because they weren't that common. And when I'd go home for the summer it took me awhile to remember that I was in Washington again and therefore would see LOTS of Washington license plates...Our son is like a Rhode Island License Plate in California. Not very often will you see one...
Posted by ABQ Mom :: 8/09/2005 10:01:00 PM :: 0 Comments:

Post a Comment

---------------------------------------