Muffins with Mom – The Motivation, Inspiration and Perspiration of Parenting

 

The call came at the end of my workday, my sons picture flashed on the screen of my cell phone. I answered quickly as I was packing up to head home. His voice had a joyful tone as he said, “Guess what Ma? I’ve got good news.”

“Save me from guessing, and just tell me your news.”

“I’m graduating May…”

I dropped the phone and started jumping and shouting. My moves were a combination of praise dancing, jumping rope, and playing hopscotch. I bounced from my back office, past a conference room, a copy machine, and another office; To say I was excited would be an understatement.

Perspiration was forming on my forehead, inspiration was in my heart, and I knew that motivation was driving my son to see light at the end of the tunnel. After several years in college and spending time at three different colleges, he now had a graduation date. I didn’t learn of the date right away because I dropped the phone in excitement.

When a child achieves a milestone accomplishment it is a proud parenting moment. Although every achievement is worth celebrating, the big ones bring an abundance of joy for parent and child. A flood of memories poured out. There was the time my son played Wide Receiver on a little league football team and scored his first touchdown.

In high school, as my son ran down the football field, or scored points from the free throw line in basketball, I cheered. I enjoyed yelling from the stands as much as he enjoyed the adrenaline of running with a ball. His perspiration came from tense moments in the game, and so did mine.

Each time my son experienced a setback, I attempted to say a word to motivate him to keep pushing forward. We journeyed through little league, AAU sports, a high school basketball championship, and finally college. On days when I felt like I didn’t have the energy to motivate or encourage, I handed off the baton.

Running in the game of life sometimes felt like being on track relay team. Four runners are positioned around the track, one begins running then hands the baton to the next person to take over. Sometimes a runner would fall behind, causing the last runner to push harder to the finish line. Those moments when I felt exhausted and depleted, I handed off the baton.

Motivation, inspiration, and perspiration are a part of my parenting journey in some way. You may have other words to describe the journey. No matter what descriptive words you use, know that you have made an impact in your child’s life. It’s alright to feel tired and unmotivated at times, rest, take a breather, and get back in the game. You matter.

Muffins with Mom – College road trip too

It was the day of the Michigan State (my alma mater) versus Michigan football game. I had forgotten it was THE big game, until my son and I were stuck in traffic on the highway. We were on our way to visit a prospective college for him to attend.

Our journey was an example of Murphy’s Law – whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. I labeled our experience, College road trip too because a couple of years ago we took an eventful road trip with my other son.

As this particular trip unraveled, we arrived at our destination in a little over two hours, even with the traffic delay. The only thing is…it was a dummy mission-a term my older son described as going to an event/activity only to discover nothing there.

We arrived at the football field without any trouble, there were cars in the parking lot and a game was going on. Only, it wasn’t a football game as we thought it would be. It was rugby. We circled the parking lot trying to decide what to do.

Finally, my son got out of the car and talked to the college student collecting tickets at the gate. He had no idea about the college visit, however, he did tell us that there would be a football game at 7pm. It was 10:00am at that moment and we had no plans to stay around town that long. We were on a dummy mission.

Not wanting our trip to be a total loss, my son and I stayed and watched part of the rugby game. Since he played rugby for the first time last season, he enjoyed the action of the game. I, on the other hand, read my book.

On the way home I told my son to do a search on his phone for a Meijer gas station. I preferred this gas because I didn’t want to use all of my cash, nor a credit card. We pulled off the highway as the GPS directed us and found the gas station without any problems. It was shut down, out of business.

We went inside the Meijer store for a restroom break then continued down the road in search of another gas station. It wasn’t long before we found another gas station, not a Meijer gas station, but we needed gas. As I was pumping gas, a mouse came out of nowhere and stopped a foot from where I stood. It moved a couple inches then stopped again.

I screamed, put the gas pump on automatic and jumped back in the car. A dog in the car next to me started barking, the owner asked if I wanted the dog to chase away the mouse. At the same time, my son emerged from inside the gas station and thought I was being attacked. I assured him that I was fine, but he would have to finish pumping the gas.

I reset the GPS on my phone for home. My son set his to find a restaurant for us to have lunch. Both of the GPS systems began to talk at the same time. It was over stimulation. We dined at an Applebee’s restaurant where my Oriental Chicken salad was delicious…as well as my Brownie Delight.

College road trip too wasn’t so bad after all.

Have you had an eventful road trip lately?