Finally, I’ve had that parenting moment where I felt I’d turned into my mother.
We were going someplace, and the girl wanted to bring her Harry Potter book, but she couldn’t find it.
Where’d you have it last?, I asked.
Well, it was in the other room, but Daddy must have moved it.
Look again, I said.
She padded into the other room, and called back to me but it’s not here.
I followed her in, swiveled my head 90 degrees and spotted the book on the counter by the television. And I had this flashback to my childhood, when I could never find the screwdriver / buttons / baling wire / glue / sweater / cake pan my mother sent me off to look for, and she could always find everything. It’s the omniscience of the mother, yes?
Oh yes, it is.
ReplyDeleteI've got it, too. And use the skill on a nearly daily basis.
Ayup.
ReplyDeleteThis happens in our house 50 times a day.
ReplyDeleteIt's a highly tuned ability to synthesize and analyze a large amount of random data. Mother's are particularly good at it since they spend their lives organizing and categorizing homes over and over and over and over and over all day long. :)
ReplyDeleteI am usually the finder, too. Unless of course, it's something we REALLY need, in which case I won't find it. In fact, I am reading this on a break from futilely searching for something that my 7 year old needs this weekend.
ReplyDeleteAs for my teen, I have found a way to get him to find stuff: When he claims he can't find something (in the place that I told him to look because I am pretty sure I saw it there last), I offer to look for it with the warning that if I find it in the place I told him to look he gets grounded. I can't tell you how fast he manages to locate things after that.
YES! This is my house to a T!
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that this backfires. My kids now expect me to be able to find anything at any time and get upset when I tell them to go find it and maybe use their eyes next time.
ReplyDeleteYes. I think in the raising of babies we develop a sense for where everything is and so some part of our brain is tracking the sloughing off of items by others because they are never left where they ought to be. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.
ReplyDeleteMary Alice at From the Frontlines referred to it as our Uterine Tracking Device.
ReplyDeleteNo way was I going to find stuff for four kids--if they said they couldn't find it and I found it they had to pay me a dollar.
Curious minds want to know: Did you tell her where it was, or say, "I see it here, in plain sight. Keep looking!"?
ReplyDeleteit seems that I can find most everything my kid misplaces, but not the things I misplace.
ReplyDeleteooooh... i like Jenn's answer! i could get rich quite quickly! (or, more likely, my kid would learn to find stuff. hmmm.... just as good!)
ReplyDeleteMy kids don't really have money yet, but I threaten them in various ways if I have told them where to look and it turns out to be there despite their "efforts."
ReplyDeleteBoy you had a nice mother. Mine used to say: well, you'll just have to do without it then.
ReplyDeleteAnd that usually made me look again. and sometimes again.
Not that I enjoy being the go-to memory bank for our household - it's a bit like a constant game of "memory" (that game was called "concentration" when I was growing up) but at least with all my maternal dementia, I can remember something...
ReplyDeleteAll the time. ALL the time. And I remember it from my childhood too.
ReplyDeleteI wish the mother of the kids next door could find my son's stuffed cheetah, though. We KNOW it's there somewhere!
My mother always used to complain that I "don't LOOK".
ReplyDeleteI hope I will develop the mommy-finding sense...
Awesome mom's comment made me laugh because we usually tell our son "to see you must use your eyes."
ReplyDeleteKayTar tells me I'm the only one with working eyes in this house. LOL.
ReplyDeleteI get phone calls at the office. "Mom, where is my book/phone/comb?"
ReplyDelete