So my mom just wrapped up her first semester at Smith College and is home for Summer break. See, here she is…

I’ve only had her home one day and I’m just sick and tired of doing her laundry, picking up after her and listening to here whine, “I’m bored. I have nothing to do.”

No, she’s actually been a perfect house guest. After an insanely stressful first semester (she’s earning her Masters in Social Work), she just wants to relax. And I can’t think of a better place than my apartment, with the always calm and zen 3 1/2 year-old Dylan and the meditative and self contemplating 19 month-old Summer.

It’s a wonder I don’t open up a Buddhist monastery over here in my West Village apartment.

My mom is actually very much a Buddhist and I’m very much not, so we’ll have conversations like this one:

“Wow. What a magnificent looking salad!” she exclaims last night.

“What? Where? What salad?” I reply very confused. I’m suddenly thinking, gosh darn it, did Dylan cut up an entire salad when I wasn’t looking? I’ve really GOT to keep better tabs on that girl.

“Over there on the counter,” my mom says as she points to this:

“Mom, that’s just a bunch of radishes that need to be washed and cut.”

“Oh, they look so magnificent.”

Really? Well, ok.

And later in the evening, she describes Dylan’s musical princess book as “remarkable” because it’s a book AND also plays music.

Remarkable? Do you mean remarkably irritating? Because oh yes, I’m on board with that one, sista. Those little, repetitive tunes could make somebody – what? Oh, you just mean remarkable. Well, I guess so. I mean, if it was 1902, that technology would really knock your petticoat off.

But I have to admit – my mother really does know how to appreciate the little things. Only one semester under her belt and she’s already teaching me a few things about noticing and celebrating the details of life.

Those parents. They grow up so damn fast.

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