"When Mum's on the Phone"

Hello Friends and Neighbors,                                                                      

I'm late this week, well, so late that I think I'm early!  I didn't write last week.  Life just got in my way and got going faster than I anticipated.  This week isn't much different.  I came home from my daughter's on Tuesday afternoon and now suddenly it's Thursday already.  We leave Saturday morning early for my  annual family reunion, my dad's people.  I always look forward to getting together with everyone, but once the reunion has come and gone, summer's half over.  Well, it seems like more than that.  Two weeks later (approximately) is the annual Blueberry Festival in Machias and then suddenly September hits! And you all know what follows! October and November come much too quickly and we suddenly find ourselves getting the house in Maine ready for winter!

Well, today I thought I'd share a poem that made me write it when my twins were, I don't know, three or four years old probably.  They were old enough to know that when the phone rang, I'd be distracted for a few minutes.  I kept hearing, "When Mum's on the phone it's the dandiest time..." over and over in my head every time I got off the phone.  I wrote the original version when they were very young, but lost it.  This version is similar but not exact.  I couldn't recreate it exactly, have tried several times without success, but this summer I had to do something about it, and the following is the result.  I hope you enjoy reading it at least half as much as I did writing it as I brought back memories. The only part that is really not true is that I'm sure they didn't volunteer to clean up the mess afterwards!!

WHEN MUM’S ON THE PHONE

or...  Twin Hugs,

by Ramona Herrick Boldsen

          When Mum’s on the phone it’s the dandiest time to frolic. We mumble and tumble and climb up the cupboard shelves in the pantry’s allure. There’s so much to see and do and procure from those pantry shelves. Let’s see how much are we able to grab, run, and sample under the dining room table.

          Well, not everything’s tasty, but it’s fun just to try. We just mustn’t get anything into our eyes. Let’s see... there’s oatmeal, and sugar and shortening and flour. We hope Mum keeps talking, at least for an hour.

          Spaghetti and macaroni, we found to crunch on. Cheerios and corn flakes, they’re fun to munch on. Chocolate chips and raisins, oh, look!  There’s more of those wonderful things Mum got at the store.

          Here’s some very dark cocoa. We’ll grab it and try it. Eww, it’s no fun to eat, but such fun to fly it and fling it around, in great little circles. They make mounds on the rug, like little brown turtles. Oops, some rubbed off onto our faces and clothes. We have it everywhere, even onto our nose!

          Oh no, oh no! Here comes our mum now. She’s off the phone, with a frown on her brow. It’s only been minutes, but we tasted a lot of the pantry’s stash. We hope she forgot about our running so fast out of the room. But of course she did not. She followed us soon.

          She’s not looking happy; she’s seen the rug. We’ll jump up real quick and ask for a hug. We didn’t mean harm. We just wanted to eat some of that stuff in the pantry that looked so neat.

         

          We’ll jump up together and surround Mum with our arms.  It’s Twin Hug time. It’s part of our charms. Our Twin Hugs work nicely, daytime or night. When we get mum in our circle, we join hands and squeeze tight.

                                                                                                        

          Twin hugs are fun and quite distracting. We hope she’ll forget about how we were acting. We won’t do this again, Mum, so please don’t worry. For making a mess, we are truly sorry. We’ll clean it all up just as fast as we can and then share another Twin Hug; they’re the best in the land.



So now until next time, it’s always night SOMEwhere, so Good Night and God Bless!
Romans 15:33 May the God of peace be with you all. Amen

Blessings, 

Mona in Maine