Tips from One Mom to Another

The doe brought up the babies this evening. Two sets of twins came bounding across the backyard until they saw me on the porch and pulled up short.

I could have taken some parenting tips from those mothers.

A couple of grunts from 30 feet away and their children wheel around and return to stand still at mother's side. A little deer sign language in the form of a toss of mom's head, a paw at the ground and the kids disappear quietly into the trees.

My maternal sign language was the sort that was best kept out of public view. Stomping my foot for emphasis only set off a repercussion of stomps from the girls that rivaled anything on stage at River Dance.

And the only time my girls ever mastered a quiet disappearance was when they were coming in late after I had fallen asleep on the couch.

Thirty some years in the game and I'm still taking crayons to Mass and making my girls sit kid-parent-kid-parent-kid just to avoid pinching fights in the middle of the Gospel.

I used to explain my children by saying they had been raised in the woods. By wild animals.

I should have taken my own advice; apparently I was on to something.