As I grew into a young woman, I wanted to be many things:  Courageous like Joan of Arc, Creative like Charles Dickens, Witty – definitely not like The three Stooges.  Never did I consider a stick.  The other day, one of my sons wrote that his mom was “A stick that can’t break.”  Mothers of sons definitely pull a different type of courage out of their tool box!

My 10 year old wrote a book of poems for mother’s day in a school project!  I typed it as he wrote it – The English teacher in me is so impressed with the language and how correct everything is.  The mom inside is awed.  He provides some clues about moms of sons.

 Caring about me, that’s why I love you!

Nice, loving, caring serious – that’s what you are to me.

 

You taught me a lot like making brownies, teaching me to tie my shoes

lifting me up.

 

When you’re mad at me I know you still love me.  When I fail you tell me

 to get right back up and try again.

 

I know you are a perfect singer.  That’s why I love you so much

With all my heart.  When I’m away I know you’re thinking about me.

 

When I grow up I hope I still can write poems like this.

 

You’re the best mom in the whole wide world.

 

Mommy

Loving, caring

Teaching, cooking, singing

Caring about me all the time

Awesome

 

Me

Younger, learning

Playing, jumping, riding

Brother, student, teacher, cook

Caring, loving, kissing

Older, teaching

Maryleigh

 

Personification:  My mom is like a stick that can’t break

Alliteration:  My marvelous mom makes me brownies

Rhyme:  My mom as looking at me because I was too high in a tree

Simile:  My mom is as strong as an ox

 

Limerick

 

My very nice mommy is cool

She teaches everyday at school

So she quit to teach

She went to the beach

But now she rides a mule to school

 

Marvelous

Awesome

Ridiculously cool

Yells sometimes

Likes to knit

Exelent

Impossible to break

Great

Hopeful

 

Cooly stoic is a must-have emotional tool for moms with sons – especially only sons.  When a snake gets in the yard or house, cooly stoic teaches a positive lesson to the jaw-gaping audience.  One day, a small garden snake found its way into the living room of our house.  We lived in the country, so turtles, owls, you name it, they showed up on our door step.  A snake in the house was a definite attention grabber, ramping up the emotional race between abject fear and adventurous excitement.  The boys were all agog! 

They called their solution, mom.  They never doubted that I could solve this problem.  Flight was definitely my choice on the inside.  Fight was the only alternative.  I calmly walked into the kitchen, grabbed a glass mixing bowl, filled a Ziplock bag with ice, and returned to the living room where I popped the bowl over the 8 inch snake, covered it with the ice bag, and left it until my husband came home.  The ice cooled the now dormaint snake.  The cat sat beside the bowl, watching, hopeful. The boys watched, grew bored, and wandered away from their adventure.

Brave on the outside – courageous – flinching, shaking, wanting nothing more than to stand on a chair and scream on the inside.  A stick that cannot be broken.  Some days, that aptly describes a mom of five sons!  I think my son just told me that I became more than I ever dreamed.