Two Peas in a Pod

Problem Solver

                For as long as I can remember, people have told me that I look just like my mom, and because I have always admired her so much, I also try to be like her. She was beautiful inside and out, and when she smiled, her green eyes sparkled like emeralds. She was kind, caring, smart, ambitious, and had a remarkable ability to make everyone she knew feel like they were the most important person in existence. When I went to Outdoor Lab in sixth grade, I received a card with a sweet note from her every day during mail call… even the day we arrived!

                People never told me I looked like my dad. The only thing they ever said was, “Oh, Jamie, were you named after your dad?” He is brilliant, quiet, and thoughtful. He is thorough in his explanations of how things are (and in his writing) to the point of over-talking a point, makes people feel at ease, and is patient to the point where he waits for problems to work themselves out.  

                In addition to being beautiful and absolutely amazing, my mom faced challenges head on and solved them before they got worse. Growing up with two older brothers, there were always cute boys around, and when we reached adolescence, their friends got cuter! One day Greg and his friend Kit returned to 65^th Place with their computer in the Radio Flyer, complaining about the jostling the Gateway had undergone. They scrounged the houses for extra towels and blankets to line bottom of the wagon, and just as they were tightening the belts they had linked together around the computer, my mom got home from work and said, “Why don’t you just have your other group members come to our house to work on the assignment?” Genius! I would have offered to help find cushioning for the computer (though at the time, all I could do was peek out the window over the back of the couch).

                Before I got my frog-pants pajamas, I wore nightgowns to bed. As a little girl, these were floor-length with long sleeves and a little bow around the lace collar. As I got older, my nightgowns got simpler and eventually were oversized t-shirts. They were light and comfy in the summer, and as I got taller and taller, they got shorter and lighter. One summer evening as bedtime was approaching and my brothers were preparing for their cute friends to spend the night, my mom knocked on my bedroom door.

                “Hey Jame. Dad wanted me to talk to you about your nightgowns, and he thinks that you should wear shorts or pants underneath, especially when your brothers have friends over.”

                Blush. “Okay,” and later that weekend, I bought my first pair of frog-pants pajamas.

                Now that I’m a mother, I see that my mom’s request was as much from her as it was from my dad, and that my dad asking my mom to talk to me about it was dealing with a problem the same way I would… hope the problem would solve itself, and when it got bad enough, take an indirect approach to making a change. Looking at how my mom solved problems and comparing it to how my dad solved problems… I’m as much a piece of my dad as I am of my mom!