Mama Said Knock You Out

My wife and mom will tell all of you not to call it a comeback.

Everyone has noteworthy moments to draw from in their life experiences, but my wife has the 3” binder to prove it over the past few years. While we take pictures of Little Miss Sunshine every chance we get, the same luxury isn’t always extended to mom; ditto for good ol’ me time. Because I know how hard Chastity works during the week and she has Caeli alone on the weekends I have to work, I generally try to let her sleep in most Saturday mornings and have some semblance of breakfast ready on Sundays when I get home from the graveyard shifts at work. Most of the time, a box of Dale’s Donuts are sufficient but there are the moments I kind of feel myself and try something else (read: steak and eggs, French toast or rice and bacon, etc.) before they head off to church and I go to bed for a nap before returning to work on those alternating weekends.  

Motherhood is definitely not for the weak at heart – she’s been rocking her peers since 2015, so don’t even think about comparing her parenting style to your own (or your mother’s, for that matter). What works for one parent isn’t always effective for another.

Those of you who are in the business of critiquing for sport…Mama said knock you out.

Being Caeli’s mother has meant taking this itty-bitty world by storm and as our little fighter has proven time and time again, every day is a brand-new adventure starting with the strewn toys along the hallway she didn’t put away from the night before and the extra effort in taking care of her. There is that issue of navigating rush-hour traffic five days a week in addition to managing a busy doctor’s schedule for not only Caeli but also her own health and sanity – I’m not sure if I could remember each appointment and at this point, the very idea of sitting in the parking lots known as Interstate 30 and Stagecoach Road are not my idea of fun AND that’s before even making to I-430, Markham, Rodney Parham, Cantrell, or University. The things she does on a daily basis are nothing short of staggering, and we all know doing hair just isn’t in the realm of things I could possibly be competent at. Thank Chastity the next time you see Caeli with hang time pigtails or the Afro puff days we rarely step out in now because I don’t want to be the one who messes up a good thing. Besides, my biggest effort comes in making sure she is matching before leaving the house that day.

I’m sorry for not picking up the puzzle pieces or blocks you’ve stepped on and for the weeknights she keeps her awake due to an irregular sleep schedule. I promise I’ll do better with both for the next year and beyond so she’ll be prepared for preschool, kindergarten, and the real jungle called life.

If your kid can recite Future or Migos and doesn’t know how to count to ten…Mama said knock you out. Caeli can count to ten!

Thank God for giving you the strength to rock hard daily.

Thank you for who you are and what you do all of the time and not just on the second Sunday of each May.

Thank you for lending me out even when I’d rather be at home with you two. I’m trying to conquer the honey-do list, I swear!

Thank you for helping raise our daughter to be all she is destined to be – and becoming a less picky eater than her daddy was at her age.

Most of all, thank you for being an amazing loving wife to me and mother to Caeli.  There just aren’t enough words to say how much I love you.

In Mom’s case, she’s been here for years with the gray hairs and wrinkles to prove it. After nearly forty years in the motherhood battles, she has that part on lock – as for changing poopy girl diapers, she’d rather defer that to me. Hey, it’s my turn to raise a child and even then, she didn’t have girls only my younger brother and me. Beyond being my mama, she in effect was the community mama:  everyone played basketball or football in our yard growing up, and then there is directing the youth department at church. During a given week, there would be anywhere from six to twenty boys and Nacole or Alisha in the backyard playing 21 kicking up dust and serving as an interim referee those few times we couldn’t police ourselves on the court. Aside from a handful of fights back there (I can only recall three), the rules were pretty standard across the board:  Respect Mrs. Pat or leave. The guys who did get to stay all day when we were younger were blessed with sandwiches, Kool-Aid, and a certain level of freedom that none of us would dare our babies to have today!

Then there are the 8-bit Nintendo tournaments at home. The first one to beat a video game out of the four of us got his (or her) choice of Saturday night dinner! Just so everyone knows, I was not always the king of sticks – sometimes, the cheat codes weren’t enough to get Mega Man through the game with three lives or controlling Luigi’s happy feet in Super Mario Bros. 2 or Tetris after a certain point was simply too fast.

If you’re more interested in being a friend than a parent…Mama said knock you out.

My mama was old-school to the core and fortunately for us, she (and dad) parented us like two individual sons versus the comparison mode many parents then and now find themselves engaged in. You know, the “why can’t you be like your brother/sister” mode.

This is the woman who introduced me to Calvin and Hobbes and the satire found in the Far Side. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t all Bible verses and schoolwork for me; I had to learn how to interact with people in the real world even when I really didn’t want to be sociable. In my teenage mind, I’d rather be in the gym shooting baskets on Saturday nights alone so I can catch at least one pickup game on any given Sunday afternoon after church than cavort around folks who roasted me Monday through Friday only to beg for free tacos or to “borrow” money they never paid back.

Thank you for reminding me that there is no future in being a 5’9” power forward and I needed a solid education to offset my ninth-grade dreams of controlling the paint as a rebounding machine. Years after I grew those three inches to 6’, I still couldn’t see the court aside from the occasional pickup contest.

Thank you for not allowing me to have everything I wanted just because I had the money burning a hole in my pocket and the income stream to pay for it.

Thank you for the laundry instructions you sent to me my freshman year at Henderson. I know I would’ve tried to wait it out until I wanted to come home to bring an overflowing basket to the house, but it’s a vital life skill that has kept me from going broke buying clothes every other week.

Thank you for believing in the literary dream after all of these years, and although I’m not a full-time writer yet, I don’t need to be. One of these days I will publish the Dad Chronicles in a hardback version.  

Thank you for introducing me to God as a wee child and for being my mommy!

LL Cool J told you not to call it a comeback.

If you didn’t listen…Mama said knock you out.

Happy Mother’s Day.