"You were banished because you were clumsy?"

Me and Jar Jar Binks. We have that in common. (That is all we have in common. I did not ruin a movie franchise with my ridiculous antics, thank you very much!)

And maybe I wasn't exactly banished, but I was definitely clumsy.

It's probably the thing about me growing up that drove my mom nuts the most. I mean aside from my lack of punctuality (er... see last week's post and, er... the timing of this week's post!)

You see... as a small child, I was fond of running into things with my face. It's like I'd get up to speed and then couldn't figure out how to stop, so I'd just point my mug in the direction of the nearest hard/pointy/sharp/injurious surface and cease forward momentum thusly.

For example, I distinctly remember the day my mother was baking snickerdoodles (I also didn't give silly names to cookies - that's just what they're called, all right?) and I'd endured an afternoon of delicious chocolatey smells wafting down from the kitchen. When, finally, she called down that they were ready, I went tearing upstairs, misjudged the door frame and door opening by several significant inches and split my forehead open on the corner of the wall. This was in the days before cell phones: my dad came home from work to an empty house, mouthwatering aromas, and random blood-spatters as my mom had taken my brother to the neighbors and driven me to emergency to get my face sewn shut.

Then there was the time I split my eyebrow open bouncing on my bed - having flown off wildly after a rogue bounce and finding it necessary to impede my flight by way of the dresser.

Oh yeah... and then there was the time I split my lip open on the fireplace hearth. I don't even remember what my reasoning was that time. Probably just kids havin' fun...

All of these incidences required various degrees of needle-work to make right. So by the time I slipped on a patch of ice in the school playground and broke my arm in the second grade, my adorable visage was a road map of scars both fresh and fading. Not surprising then that the doc who was plastering my skinny limb into a cast didn't believe me when I said I'd "fallen down". Sure you did, kid. Ma'am, we'd like to talk to Lesley alone, for a moment, please...

Honestly, I think the poor woman thought they were going to call a social worker on her! But then I probably did something like fall off the examining table, lending credence to the "No really - she's just unnaturally clumsy!" theory.

They let me go home and I'm sure my mother was relieved at that. But yeah - I'm pretty sure that it also drove her fairly nuts.

I Like My Karma the Way I Like It

According to my parents, I was a pretty easy baby and toddler. I napped when I was supposed to. I didn’t cry a lot. I listened. Even as I got older I was always the good/well-behaved child in the family, the one my mom didn’t have to worry about having tantrums in the mall or misbehaving at school. But, as I’ve been told, even as a young child I was a little bit OCD. (And okay, admittedly, I still am). Remember Sally in When Harry Met Sally – when she orders her salad in her own particular way, dressing on that side? That’s me. I also like what she says in the movie, that she just likes things the way she likes them. There’s nothing wrong with being particular, right?

But anyway, when I was around two or three apparently I had this thing, where I would only use a Kleenex if it came from this one particular box in our living room. If anyone tried to give me one from somewhere else, I cried and screamed and insisted the Kleenex must be from the living room. I’m sure this drove my mother crazy (and I’m sure it wasn’t just the Kleenex, although this is the story I’ve heard over and over and over again my whole life.) I’m not sure how long this went on, maybe months or years, but I do remember what cured me of it. Once I was at my no-nonsense next door neighbor’s house and I needed a tissue. I insisted my mom run back to our house and get me one from the living room, until my neighbor yelled at me and insisted I take the tissue from her house. I’m not sure why, or exactly what she said to me (but vaguely remember she said something to the effect that I should stop being such a whiny brat), but whatever it was, I never complained about the tissues again.

And like Maureen said, there’s nothing like karma. Because my youngest son is exactly this way. He will only drink his juice box if it’s facing a certain way and placed in the Sponge Bob cup-holder in one direction; he will only walk on one side of the garage, which is, of course the longer route to the door, and he has a fit if you try to make him go the other way. He instructs me specifically on where each part of his dinner should go on his plate. And I could probably go on and spout off a million little things he wants a particular way, things that drive me crazy on a daily basis.

Of course, when I complain to my mom about it, she just laughs and asks if I took a Kleenex from the living room today. Okay, point taken.

High Maintenance

I really, really hope that my mother doesn't read this week's post, as I know whatever I end up confessing, she would remind me of about 500 additional incidents that caused her to pull out her hair.

My mother always referred to me as her "high-maintenance child" because I was colicky as n infant and strong-willed as a toddler and beyond. She has since eaten these words, after raising my siblings who have totaled three cars, gotten brought home by the police, had our house t.p.-ed, and so on. "High-maintenance" sounds pretty good right about now, huh?

Of course, I had my fair share of difficult moments as a child. If my mom said up, I said down. She suggested I wear pants to school, and I'd only want to wear a dress. Sometimes I think I argued with her just for the sake of challenging her and to see if her head would pop off due to frustration. Like the time when I was in kindergarten and she brought me to a fancy department store and told me not to touch anything. I responded by knocking over a mannequin and shattering it into a million pieces. That one wasn't on purpose. I think.

And as a teenager, I had my fair share of "I'll just say I'm sleeping over at a friend's house" and missed curfews. Then, when I entered college, I decided to get a tattoo. Her reaction of, "That's nice" was somewhat anti-climactic.

But as I've said before, everything I did that my parents thought was terrible has been either matched or completely overshadowed by my two brothers and sister. Yet my mother still calls me her difficult child, despite never having crashed their car into the side of the garage and then pretended that the huge dent just "appeared overnight." Ahem.

A few years ago, I had my own high-maintenance child. My mother smiled and sat back, happy with the knowledge that karma is truly a great thing.

Oh, Let Me Count the Ways...

I giggled when I saw what this week's topic is. Truly, I did. There were so many ways I drove my mother crazy that choosing just a few to highlight caused me a fair amount of stress. Something my mother would appreciate hugely. Finally, after all of these years, I am going to admit to the world how many gray hairs I actually gave my mom.

Sigh.

So, where to be begin?

I could talk about the time I raised our phone bill (remember, this was long before all-in-one long distance plans) to a horrifying (really horrifying) amount for three months in a row calling a college guy I fancied myself in love with. What makes this story worse is I (okay, yes, I am sooo embarrassed to admit this) HID the phone bills when they came the first two months. The third month, I sort of had to give in and show it to her, because otherwise, we'd have lost phone service.

She was not happy. And, as a mom who has faced her own battles with phone bills caused by her teenage daughter over the years, I totally get this. Now. Not so much then.

I could talk about the time I, living in another state at the old age of eighteen, decided to marry a man I barely knew and gave her the news over the phone. When I shared that I met him at a "church" that was actually not a church, but some made-up religion centered out of another guy's house (um...cult? Maybe. I've never decided this for sure), and that this guy stated it was God's will for us to marry, I'm sure she hung up the phone and cried. (For the record, I did not marry this guy. I just thought I was going to, but luckily, sanity won out in the end).

Or I could talk about the time I, as a senior in high school, took off with a girlfriend for the evening (um, the entire evening), with her parents believing she was at my place and my parents believing I was at hers. When her parents called my house to check in, the entire story unraveled, and my parents phoned the police with my license plate number. Yeah. That was a fun night for all of us.

Or another night that I (also a senior in high school) took off with another friend for a party. And then, when it was obvious that no one should be driving, called home and left a rambling message that I was staying the night at my friend's house. The next day, when I got home in the early afternoon, my parents were just about to call the police again. Because, apparently, I hadn't left the message on our phone. They, for most of the morning, thought I was sleeping in, but when Mom finally checked my room and found I wasn't there...Well, let's just say it's a good thing I got home when I did.

Okay, you know what? Those four are enough. Let's leave it at that before I turn any of my own hairs gray! But Mom? For the record, I apologize for stressing you out and driving you crazy. I'm lucky I had you to always, always steer me the right way.

Now, just for fun, tell me some of the ways you drove your mom crazy. Please? Misery loves company and all that...