Did you really think you could beat the champ?

Dear Schlusser Girls in my home,

I have to ask a simple question: Did you really think you beat the all time champion of skoocherdom? Did you really believe that you could out complain me about your wardrobe before school?
Let me tell you all somethin': I made an art out of giving my mom, your grandmother, a hard time about what I was wearing to school. I would rail, complain, cry and all around tantrum about what I was wearing...what makes that extraordinary bratiness you ask?

I wore a uniform for the first 12 years of school!

The only variety I got was woolish navy blue knee high socks or shear navy blue knee high socks. We didn't even get to choose the sneakers a normal child got to wear for gym...we wore trampoline shoes and no one, I mean NO ONE, knows what the heck those things are unless they attended St. Matts!

Ask your oldest sister what happens when you "can't find anything to wear" in my house. Liz was given a mandatory, mom-initiated-uniform in 2nd grade. She had a choice between two outfits for a month. I wrote her teacher a note letting her know that we were not suddenly poe folk but that I was teaching Liz a lesson about how to get ready for school...it worked too. Legend has it, that same teacher passed that very lesson on to other parents facing the purgatorial wardrobe issue. Only once did your sister ever give me a hard time in the mornings again about getting ready for school...it was attributed to hormones and a loss of mind over matter. For her gift of stomping in my house she was rewarded with a week of KP duty.

Go on, I dare you to try...

As for playing skootcher/instigator in my bathroom while you and your sisters attempt to brush teeth and use MY make up...try harder dear ones. You can't beat me. Sister Mean-in-the-Heart sent me to the bathroom in 6th grade to wash off the well applied mascara I had borrowed from Kerry Ann Hermanspan.

Being raised by a tom-boy-mom, make up was a trial and error attempt for me. I give you my word: I will let you use as much make up as you want and I will teach you how to apply it correctly....but if you are not old enough to buy it yourself, you are not old enough to wear any! I too will send you to wash your face off just like the mean nun of my youth...and there is no way you can ever out mean the teachers in my grade school. I won't bore you with how we walked both ways, up hill, in the snow, in June...but rest assure, it is all the truth!

Let us discuss the attitude towards transportation. Yes, you may be stuck on a school bus or walked/driven by me. I know, it is a horror. No matter how bad it is, you must count your blessings and thank God you were not sitting next to ME in the 4th grade, in our car pool. I was the bane of the existence of every mother/father who drove those few miles to St. Matts. Your Uncle Mark, Ed and Christine Karasinski and even the sainted (when compared to me, anyone was a saint) Stahl girls all lived with the morning dread of facing a Maryellen in the morning. No one could make that trip longer then I could.

As we crammed into the car pools driven by our parents, we risked our lives back and forth to school. Our generation loves you so much more...we were crammed into those cars with out seat belts! Proof we love better, I tell you! With four to six of us crammed into the back seat, no one knew who would get pinched or shoved or why but they knew the "who", yes, me. It was almost a given that your mother would arrive in school in tears...grown ups yelling at me always made me cry. There was never a rhyme or reason for the instigation in the car pool just the always Maryellen variable that could create mayhem.

I drove one car pool parent to edge of madness...yes, he voted for Obama. As a matter of fact we may be able to trace the madness of more then one member of that carpool to "Maryellen Syndrome".

Sigh...

Yeah, your mom has a past. It is not a heritage that I would ever want to pass on to you all. I can't give you a pure past. But I can give you a heritage that I am proud of: you see, I had a praying mom. I am not so sure that my mom wanted a deeper relationship with Jesus, but frankly I drove her to her knees in prayer. When pulling her hair out, stomping her foot, giving the look and even a crack on my behind didn't work...at all...she went to her God. Yes, I had a praying mom who shared Jesus with me. I can think of few who may have needed Him in that carpool more then I did. Because of my mom, you too have a praying mom.

I won't look the other way when it would be easier to ignore your small sins...I also won't lecture you...much. We all know I love to hear me speak. I will demand your best in reading and writing and arithmetic...but more so, the best from your heart. All of our sins set us up to know better then our God. I pray you are humble enough to turn to Him, to trust me and Daddy and to love your own self. Know that no matter the mess you create, chances are your very own mom did it first. I am here to help you clean it up, sometimes with a hug and sometimes with a lecture and sometimes with a good dose of KP duty. You are always worth the argument my dears.

God is very choosy about the moms and daughters he sets together. Perhaps the reason He stuck you with me, is because I've already been broken and restored. God can do so much with a restored heart...I am proof of that. So don't try to out skooch the former reining queen of skoocherdom my beautiful girls. I know every trick in the book because I wrote it. Fortunately, my name was already written another book called the Book of Life. God had editorial control all along and He knew the end from the beginning for me. I have a life that is amazing and a wild adventure EVERYDAY because He thinks I am worth it. He thinks the same of you girls.

All I can tell you for sure, is that He has a hope and a future for you...one that has already been written, in His time and His space. Now go show up for that life He created just for you. Trust me, if you trust Him, your life is going to be a blast.

Love,
Mom

PS Don't worry, my darling son is on the docket for tomorrow. I've included a link to the luliby my own sainted mother sang to me...I think it says it all.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJsQSb9RFo0&feature=related