Weird Mom Moments: EMN Mini-Carnival

Congratulations to Kate Sherwin at “Rosemary Sauce.” Her entry, “Like Mother, Like Son” was this month’s winner of the “Weird Mom Moments” Carnival Contest! Kate won $50, since she had the EMN button prominently displayed on her site! Good work, Kate!

Every mom must have them at one time or another … the moments she looks down at herself and say, “What have I DONE to myself?!” I know I have, as my daughter reminded me only recently. “Don’t be weird, mom…”

I can’t help it. I was born and raised that way … by a woman who clearly did not mind appearing ridiculous for the benefit of her girls (and their respective Girl Scout/religious education/school friends). She would burst into song … loudly, though usually on key … with all sorts of ditties, like:

“I’m wild about horns on automobiles that go WAH_AH_AH_AH_AH_AH_AH (ooga, ooga)”

“John Jacob Jingerheimer Schmidt, his name is my name too. Whenever we go out, the people always shout, there goes John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA.”

“Oh, an Austrian went yodeling on the mountaintop high…” (and proceeded to tangle with a grizzly bear, St. Bernard, Jersey Cow, and pretty girl with the appropriate gestures and sound effects).

She’d do stuff, too … weird mom stuff. Like the day she took us on a Girl Scout Hike through High Point State Park to teach us trail-making … and we wound up 10 miles up the Appalacian Trail. Or the time she took us camping, and left the bubble gum in our tent; that night we watched the squirrels blowing bubbles as they jumped from tree to tree. Or the time, shortly after my sister had her leg operated on, she brought a hand puppet to stick on my sister’s foot, to give the doctors (and my sister) a good laugh when they pulled back the covers. Or the time our dog got in the house when she was putting the finishing touches on a wedding cake (she made wedding cakes as a sideline when we were little), and she was forced to “fix” the cake rather than make a new one. (I’ll spare you the gory details.)

Judging from how few entries that were submitted for this contest, I’d have to say that there are a lot of moms out there who don’t want to let on about all the weirdness that goes on in their houses. There were a galliant few, however … and my hat goes off to you, too!

“If you jump off that and breakyour leg, don’t come running to me!” Moms are famous for all sorts of homespun wisdom. Barb Szyszkiewicz of “SFO Mom” adds a few memorable zingers of her own in her contribution to the EMN Carnival,  “Things Parents Say (when they live at my house.”

And Sarah (A.K.A. my favorite humor blogger, “Mighty Mom”) adds to the weirdness with her own “Look Before You Touch!”

Thanks, ladies for participating!