Mothers come in two types: the Perfect kind and the Other kind. The Perfect kind send their children to school dressed
in layers so they will be perfectly dressed no matter what the weather.
The Other kind believe the weatherman when he says a heat wave's going to hit. Their children go to school wearing flip-flops
and cut-offs. And then it snows.
The Perfect mom spends part of her day trimming vegetables in the shapes of roses and happy faces and putting them into her children's lunchboxes together with her
homemade fat-free cilantro and sun-dried tomato dip.
The Other mom puts both potato and tortilla chips in her child's lunchbox on the theory they're both made from vegetables and somehow fulfill part
of the kids' five-a-day fruit and vegetable requirement.
The Perfect mother makes cunning little crustless sandwiches in the shape of ducks for the pre-school party.
The Other mother climbs
out of bed at 3 a.m. to use the bathroom and remembers she promised to send something in for the pre-school party. Rummaging sleepily through her cabinets in the grips of a pre-dawn panic attack, she locates
a jar of maraschino cherries and some toothpicks. She decides if she dresses the plate up with a little lettuce, maybe she can get by with cherry hors d'oeuvres.
The Perfect one is always the
chairman of any event with which she is associated. She's the soul of organization, a force with which to reckon.
The Other one is always on the clean-up crew. She has the most experience removing
mustard stains from carpets.
The Perfect mom never misses a telephone message. She has a pager, call waiting, voice mail and her children write them on the pad with the pen placed conveniently
near the telephone.
The Other mom has never received an entire telephone message. The pad and pen she placed near the phone were used to play tic-tac-toe and hangman. Her husband's still trying to
figure out what those annoying beeps on the phone are. And her messages are delivered only when the person calls back a day or two later and the child who answers says, "Oh yeah Mom, I forgot. Your boss
wants you to call him."
The Perfect mother cooks gourmet meals once a month and then bags and stores them in the freezer. Each morning she pulls them out to thaw and has dinner on the table in less
than 30 minutes when she arrives in the evening.
The Other mother rushes into the kitchen with dread because she's just realized her teenager has to be at her piano lesson in 15 minutes and all she
has in the refrigerator are some suspiciously old hot dogs, a bowl of green stuff and some jelly.
The Perfect mom dresses her children like miniature versions of herself when they're little. When
they're big, she borrows their clothes.
The Other mom hasn't been in fashion since before she went into maternity clothes.
Being the Perfect kind of mother is like planning the perfect
vacation: the more complicated it gets, the less fun you know you're going to have when you get there. As for the Other mothers, they're still in the driveway because they can't find their car keys. I'm not
sure where I fit in but I can tell you this: there's been a whole lot of mustard on my carpets over the years and I'm pretty darn good at getting it out.
