“Wipe my poor tears.”
That’s what my poor mother had to deal with from yours truly for several years when I was a young girl. The story is that one day I got upset when my Bubbie was with me, and as she dabbed my eyes with her ever-present tissue, she spoke those now immortal words. For a sensitive girl attempting to milk some drama from being upset, what could be better than poor tears. Don’t those sound extra sad?
Mom reminds me of this periodically. Now I’ve got something to fire back at her. Just yesterday, as Simon and I sat down to play dominoes in his bedroom, he tried to insist that I rearrange the room so he could sit on the area rug. Why so determined? I’ll let him tell you:
“Oh, Mommy. I need to sit on the rug. This wood floor is so hard on my poor tushie!”
Not just a tushie—a poor tushie.
I’m sure I responded much the way my own mother did 37 years ago.
“Honey, if my flat, 41-year-old tushie can sit on this floor and be ok, then your round, 4-year-old one shouldn’t have any problems at all.” Heartwarming, I know.
So how do I know this came from my mom? Easy:
- Simon makes her sit down on the cold, hard concrete floor in her basement to play, which I’m sure is hard on her tushie!
- Simon never, ever uses the word tushie no matter how hard I try. My little Bart Simpson vastly prefers “butt”.
making an inference here.
but it strikes that sometimes a grandma will do stuff that a mom won’t.