Et Tu Mom?

After Christmas Brent, Liesel and I caravaned down with my parents to NJ. A dear friend had made the decision to get baptized and we weren't about to miss it. Turns out we weren't the only ones traversing some distance for the event. There was even a family who had flown in from California and needless to say, the room was filled to capacity. After the baptism the branch had a pot luck to celebrate. Brent and I hung out and talked to the family while Mom and Dad kept things moving. Eventually the crowd thinned and people began folding up chairs and putting away the tables.

I was talking to one of the daughters who's attending college at Northeastern in Boston when I spied Liesel crawling towards a garbage can. Garbage holds a strange sort of fascination for her and if there's one within eyesight she's sure to crawl as fast as she can to empty out the contents. To prevent this disaster, I swiftly picked her up in my arms and returned to my seat. As I sat down, the Northeastern girl got the most curious expression on her face. She suddenly became mute and her eyes grew as big as saucers. Her body went rigid as she leaned towards me. It really threw me off until I hit THAT point. You know, the point where you've squatted enough to realize there is no seat under you anymore and it's much too late to try and stand up. The point of no return.

I'm not sure how, but as I went down I instinctively cradled Liesel so she wouldn't get hurt by the fall. I fell mostly on my butt and side but managed to pick up a bruise and nasty rug burn on my elbow. My first thought was, "Is Liesel okay?" followed quickly by "Did everyone see that?" All movement in the room stopped as everyone stared at me as if I'd started doing an impromptu Mexican hat dance in the nude. Apparently, everyone saw. Liesel continued to blabber as if nothing happened while the circle of concerned onlookers focused on me. As I turned around I expected to see one of the punk kids who had been running round all night making trouble. Ha ha, very funny. That kid was about to get a tongue lashing from me about what could have happened to my precious child in the fall. Imagine my surprise when I turned to face my shocked mother... holding my chair.

Her eyebrows were practically in her hairline. "OH!!! I didn't know you were going to sit down again!" Every once in a while Mom has a way of making something sound like an angry accusation and a question at the same time. This was one of those moments. Then came the rush of questions from the well-intentioned onlookers: Are you okay? Do you want me to take Liesel? Can you get up? All the while my angel mother was still standing there with my chair in hand. It seems neither of us really knew what to do. I didn't want to answer the questions so I got up and helped clean up the room so we could get out of there as quickly as possible.

There's a phrase that goes something like this: "I felt like I had the rug pulled out from under me." Well now I can say I know what that feels like and then some. I had a chair pulled out from under me. While holding my 9-month old. In a pencil skirt. By my OWN mother. Even though I'm a grown woman, could this still count as a childhood scar?