When Mama Ain't Happy . . .

I really have the most wonderful mother. She raised eight kids with a lot of love, hardly any gourmet cooking, and a HUGE amount of patience. However, like all of us, she has her quirks. And since I really believe my mission in life is to out the world's quirky people one blog at a time, I'll tell you one of my favorite "Mare-mares" (Rhett's nickname for her) stories.

Once a month, we fast. When I was little this was a serious hardship. When I was a teenager, it was cause for some serious crankiness. And now that I'm a nursing mom, well, I don't do it! One Sunday we were fasting, and we came home from church to get our "break-the-fast" meal ready. Well, it wasn't just the teenagers who got a little cranky.

Granted, we were all complaining. Granted, we were all bickering. Granted, it was generally an unpleasant day to be the mother of eight children. In the middle of all of our bickering, fighting, complaining, whining, swearing (that's me!), and unpleasantness, Mare-mares had enough.

"Enough!" yelled Mare-mares. She grabbed the defrosted poppy-seed chicken casserole that was to be our dinner, stormed into her bedroom and locked the door behind her. What? (Or, as my four-year old would say, "What the??")

We all laughed kind of nervously at Mare-mares little temper tantrum, and waited for her to come back with our dinner. Except this wasn't just a little temper tantrum. She stayed in there for a long time! We all crept to her door and apologized under the crack in the door (well, except for Josh who made himself saltine cracker, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in an effort to prove that Mare-mares wasn't the boss of him--he's so like that), but she wasn't budging.

It was probably an hour later that she emerged, poppy-seed chicken casserole in hand, ready to make dinner. What?

Now I know where I get the drama queen gene from . . .


This is Mare-mares and my dad, on a less dramatic day.