Love and Laughter

LUKY:
WHEN MY ELDEST CHILD WAS IN HER EARLY TEENS, I FOUND TO MY HORROR THAT WE WERE CLASHING.
  We didn't have fights, really, but sometimes when I'd be holding forth, I'd suddenly turn to face her, finding her eyes cast heavenwards in silent supplication for strength. On such occasions she'd call me Mother.
  "Why is it, Mother, that you can never tell a story without bringing a moral into it?"
  I countered that one neatly - or so I hoped.
  "To me," I said smugly, "a story without a moral is a story wasted."

Happy ending
  The turning point in our relationship came the day she set eyes on our last baby. She fell instantly in love with Jean, and her misgivings about me evaporated, because wasn't I the clever one to give birth to such a lovely baby?
  She went all over town, bragging about her sister.
"I met Mrs Jones and her daughter in town today. They send their regards and congratulations."
  "Thanks, but why congratulations?"
"I told them about some of Jean's antics, and they said she's unusually advanced for a child of only five months."
  "You know," I said seriously, "I hate to hurt your feelings, but unless you're careful you're going to become the sort of woman people avoid. Jean is sweet, I grant you, but so are other people's children."
  "I see what you mean, yes, I must watch that tendency. But between us, Ma, don't you think she's exceptionally intelligent?"
  "There you go again", I said and we both laughed.

Look of love
  A thing which always struck me about my husband was that before going to work he'd tiptoe into the children's bedrooms and just stand quietly, gazing at them. I sometimes wondered what would be passing through his mind. As for me, my maxim is let sleeping babies lie.
  Then I noticed that my daughter, before going to school, would tiptoe into Jean's room and gaze at her in just that same still way, yet I don't believe she'd ever seen her father do it.

Noise and mess
  Yes, we are a children-loving family. It never ceases to astound me that for all the noise, mess and irritation they cause, most children are adored by their parents.
  It is the simple sincerity of children that I love.
My Maria is another sincere one. Anxiously I said to the nun who taught her:
  "Anything wrong you hear about us from the News of the World, please let it go in one ear and out the other."
  "The stories about your family are nothing to some I've heard", she smiled. "I keep them all locked in my heart."
  Well, thank goodness for that, anyway.

My toothbrush
  I was annoyed to find my toothbrush used in the mornings, so my husband bought eight new toothbrushes, four big, four small, all different colours. Each child memorised his or her own, and for a week all went well.
  Then one morning my brush had been used again. I stood in the passage and lifted my voice:
  "This nonsense has to stop. Each of you has a toothbrush: why can't you leave mine alone? Woe betide the one I catch using it after today."
  Suddenly Maria was beside me, all hair and brown eyes.
  "You're to leave Mom's toothbrush alone from now on", she scolded. Then as though feeling she might have been a little harsh, she added:
  "But is you don't like your own, you're very welcome to  use mine."