Stop to Smell the Roses

As with most working mothers my life can get very hectic. There is the two + hours per day I spend commuting to and from work, then dinner, homework, baths and finally sleep only to get up and do it all over again. It's a treadmill sort of existence that forces me to take a lot for granted and often makes me more than a little irritable.

I was in this frame of mind one night recently when my son asked me to take a look at a web site for kids that he likes. My job requires me to stare at a computer screen all day, so when I'm not at work, looking at a computer ranks right up there with cleaning up dog poop and scrubbing toilets. So, I put him off and told him "not now I'm busy". He shrugged his shoulders and I went about whatever it was I was doing at the time. An hour or so later he asked me again...again I put him off..."maybe later" was my response. Just when I thought he'd totally forgotten and given up, he asked again. "OK" I replied, "but make it snappy."

He began explaining that his friend had shown him how to create a profile for the web site so that they could send messages to each other. There were several questions that he'd had to answer when he created the profile, favorite foods - pizza and maccaroni and cheese, favorite cartoon - Foster's Home and something called Bobo bo bobobobobo (whatever, don't ask), favorite color - red, etc. At the bottom of the list of questions he read, "Favorite Role Model". His answer, "Mom and Dad".