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Actions Speak Louder Than Colds
A Mom's Advice on Surviving Flu Season By Linda Sharp
I find there is a certain beauty to having been a parent for many years now. For one thing, I am more centered. My priorities don't even bear a shadow of a resemblance to the things I viewed as important in my 20s. Back in the day, my mindset was about my car, my job, my new shoes. Nowadays, college tuition savings for my kids, up-to-date vaccinations and raising them to be decent loving people take precedence.
I am also more relaxed. I do not stress over having a neat-as-a-pin house. I have learned that dust is patient, dust is kind. Dust is happy to sit and wait as long as it takes. Dust is even social. If neglected for too long, it will find a corner, invite some friends and have a party.
I have perfected discount shopping. With three daughters, all bent on being Lizzie McGuire lovely, the pocketbook could go broke quickly. However, they all rate high in the fashion stakes due to my ability to seek out the clearance racks in every store we enter. (It also doesn't hurt that I am the cheapest person alive.)
I find I appreciate my own parents so much more. Those same people, whom I viewed as idiots who had escaped their villages, when I was a teen? I now see that they had to make it all up as they went along too. Despite all the shelves in Barnes & Noble dedicated to it, parenting is a work in progress – something you live and learn.
But despite all these things, I believe what I value about having been a mom for so many years is my demeanor throughout cold and flu season. Yes, that's right. I have not majored in Snot and Vomit without attaining a certain degree of calm and insight.
