Good Intentions

That is the best I can hope for when my boys are adults and bringing their future girlfriends/wives home to meet me. They will prepare girlfriend with a brief overview, ‘Mom isn’t like everybody else, but she means well. She has good intentions.’ And then they will open the front door and hug me and introduce me to the beloved and I will be expected to a) behave myself and b) demonstrate madness in a socially acceptable form.

I tell you, it is already a challenge preparing for the future. I am already a fearsome mother. My older son took me on his field trip to Mt. St. Helens a week ago and had to whisper admonishments to me. ‘Ssssh, Mom, not so loud.’ ‘Mom, don’t say that, that’s embarrassing.’ ‘Mom, that’s not cool.’

He reminds me this week that I was the only mother on the bus saying, ‘Girls, sit down. It’s dangerous to be standing up.’ And, ‘Okay, thanks, sweetie pie for your help.’

I look good and then I open my mouth.

And so it is.

Tonight I was at my desk from 8 am until nearly 5 pm without break handling business stuff. I put together press kits, wrote press releases, mailed out party invites, set up two booksignings, assembled a prize package, answered reader mail, worked on party details, booked air travel and more. And then I attended the Eastside RWA chapter meeting for the first time all year and even met with an author friend before hand to discuss promo strategy and then had drinks after with two author friends to discuss plots (Elizabeth Boyle always helps me with plots) and the business.

It was a good night, such a good night that when I came home I decided to cap it all off by being a good mom. I’d feed my son’s new gecko for him. The baby leopard gecko joined us Friday evening and didn’t eat all weekend, not liking the mealworms and waxworms. We returned to Petco Sunday for crickets and baby gecko, hereafter known as the Lizard, broke his fast Sunday night with five tiny crickets.

I do not enjoy feeding itty bitty miniscule crickets to a baby gecko, but I don’t want the baby lizard to die, either. Moving on.

Tonight with the blue violet light shining into the ten gallon tank, I carefully opened the lid on the cricket container to shake a couple crickets into the tank and somehow more than a couple got out, and somehow only some fell into the tank and the rest went hopping away. Onto the dresser. Into the basket of stuffed animals. Across Ty’s bed. I tried to catch a couple but they’re so little and they’re so fast and it’s like trying to catch leaping dust. I gave up. And really, a cricket on the loose isn’t half as disgusting as a snail or slug on the lam. I just won’t tell the boys that I let a bunch of crickets escape. It’s not as if they read my blog.

And anyway, I was only trying to help.

I was just trying to be a good mom.

And more importantly, I had such good intentions.