What Was I Thinking?

On this, my son’s birthday eve, (his words, not mine…) I find myself thinking back over the years of his life. I am so blessed to be a mother. For as long as I can remember, all I wanted to do was find a good husband and have children.

My kids have brought a lot of love and laughter into my life. Their antics keep me young, even though I blame them for my gray hairs. Today I sat and watched my son playing with his friends, I observed some of the strange things they did and I had to laugh.

Now tonight my mind is wandering back to the time when I was near his age. As some of the memories flood my mind, I can’t help but question what in the world I was thinking.

I recall once that I stuck a huge wad of gum in my sister’s hair as we slept out in the camper one summer’s night. I was curious to know if it would come out easily if it were to get stuck there. I had planned to stick it on the wall to save until morning but feared it would fall in our hair through the night. Just in case it did, I “tested” it on my sister’s hair, first. Sure enough, if it had fallen through the night, disaster would have struck. I remember she felt me playing with her hair. She rolled over and asked what I was doing. The problem was, I hadn’t had time to remove my gum yet. (So much for my sister’s beautiful long brown hair!) I made her swear she wouldn’t be mad when I told her what I was doing. I even remember making things worse by trying to get it out myself before she ran in the house and told on me. I hid behind the couch trying to see what sort of trouble I was in for. After ice, peanut butter and finally the scissors, they got the mess out. What was I thinking???

I loved riding my bike down this hill near our house, peddling as fast as I could. One day I put my feet up on my handlebars and enjoyed the breeze as I went zooming by. I lost control a bit and the handlebars shook. Going the speed of lightening, I thought it rather fun to wobble in such a manner, so I purposely made my handlebars do that again. The next thing I know I was zigzagging from one side of the road to the other out of control before I finally face planted it right in the middle of the street. I had road burns where I didn’t even recall hitting. My chin, my arms, my knees, everywhere! I broke a few spokes in my bike, bent my handlebars, and scratched my really cool banana seat.
What was I thinking???

My list of brilliant moments could go on and on. Thinking things through to the end was obviously a bit of a challenge for me.

I somehow made it through those years of unthinking moments. (Okay, I am still having them, if I’m honest.) I like to hope they make me a little more compassionate when my own kids do crazy things. It’s while in those moments when the first thing that wants to come flying out of my mouth is, “What were you thinking?” I catch myself and think for just a moment. Someday we’ll all look back on these moments. Perhaps we may cringe a little but hopefully we’ll all just laugh a lot.