Things to Remember for The Next Time This Happens:

1. When your eyes feel like two burning orbs threatening to launch out of your skull and into a bucket of ice water, you can be confident sleep is absolutely nowhere in your near future.

2. Never eat a Chocolate ice cream and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard because you’re stressed about your 3 year old’s 103.6 fever if you are severely lactose intolerant. By the time your stomach is done making you it’s bitch, your ass will be a ring of fire and it will be 2:00am.

3. 5:00 am. Cue the screaming, delirious toddler with a 103.5 fever (hey! it’s down 1/10th of a degree!) who thinks the ceiling fixture comes to life during the night and tries to enter his ears.

4. 5:30am. After everyone is asleep, including the fixtures, crawl back into bed and shut your eyes because in 10 minutes the baby will start to wake–2 hours early. Get up out of bed, because he won’t fall back asleep. You’re not that lucky.

5. 6:00am. Say goodbye to The Mister, because he will have to leave on a business trip. That’s just how these things work. Robbers, serial killers, and psychos, here’s your chance. Kindly email for directions.

6. Resolve yourself to the fact you will get nothing done and everything your write will be crap. Oh, and you will look like Anne Ramsey from Throw Mama from the Train.

7. You will get into at least 3 fights with mom. But, she will bring over soup and supplies from the store and visit the boys even though she is mad at you because she’s just better than you that way.

8. You will try to list ten things you’ve learned from this experience and you won’t be able to think of anything that doesn’t sound better with lots of bad words…

9. And bad words offend mom. Mom will call about the bad words and will let you know what she thinks of bad words and people who use them…

10. Which brings on fight number 4 and, hopefully, another store run. Thanks, mom! (Even though I’m 35 and I can say bad words if I want to. Just saying.)

Have you ever read Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis? In this classic short story the main character, Gregor Samsa, wakes up and discovers that during the night he has transformed into, basically, a giant cockroach. I found an e-text version here for those of you unfamiliar with the story. Something similar happened to me not too long ago. No, I didn’t wake up with an exoskeleton; it was much more sinister. I woke up and realized I’m turning into my mother.

It all started out innocently enough when I realized that she sure was smart to store her shoes in their respective shoe boxes and forgo a shoe organizer. If you were to go into my mother’s closet you would see almost every pair of shoes she owns boxed and waiting on the top shelf of her closet. The only shoes relegated to the floor are her slippers and one or two pairs of shoes that she uses when she needs to do something outside, like take out the trash. I used scoff and go on and on about the time she wasted opening boxes. She pointed out that rifling for shoes on the floor of your closet while pushing aside the clothes hitting your face was the true waste of time. She was right.

One day while visiting her with the boys I decided to let her know she had a point about the shoes, and, during a moment of insanity, mentioned I should just do what she does and hope my house turns out half as organized as hers. She thought that was just great and started giving me all sorts of tips, which I promptly ignored. The clincher came at the end of the visit when I failed to return the TV remote control to it’s rightful place in the TV Remote Control Caddy. For shame! She complained. I noted that she was crazy. She then delivered this little coup de grace, “Well, if you want to be like me you need to put things away in their proper location.”

Oh. My. God. I left thirsty for many adult beverages.

Then, last week, the unspeakable happened. Again it turns out my mother was correct. This time about Tupperware and plastic containers. She hates all plastic items and thinks Tupperware is a waste of money. I’ve tried to bring her over to my side, but she won’t budge. Instead, my mom continues to use the same Corning Ware containers for the last, oh, 30 plus years. You know the ones–they’re white and they have the little blue flowers on the side. Yeah, those.

Here is how it all went down. I have a set of Corning Ware but only because I bought it as a wedding present and for one reason or another we never gave the set to the couple. It sat, unopened, in my garage for a couple of years because at the time Corning Ware = mom = shudder. I wanted something different. Something better. Eventually I got over it and started using them to serve food. They were fine, but nothing to hang onto desperately for 30 plus years. That is, until last week.

I was just getting ready to set up my lasagna in my favorite 13×9x2 pan when I realized it was still playing host to an orange cake. I picked out one of the Corning Ware dishes as a last resort. In fact, see that one on the right holding the food? That’s the one I used.

Anyway, I set up the lasagna, put it in the oven, and when it was ready took it out and put it on the table. Hmm. That was easy. Then when we were done with dinner I–wait for it–put the lid on it and put the leftovers in the refrigerator. Sacre bleu! What is this?! I went from cooking to serving to storing in one fell swoop! I know you all think I’m crazy right now, but even though I watched my mom do this for 20 some odd years the practicality of it never really occurred to me. Now, looking back over the last 10 or so years, I’m the schmuck who cooked in a pan, served in a bowl, then stored in a Tupperware container. I’ve been cleaning three times as many dishes.

I hate to say it, but the older I get the “righter” my mom gets. This is an outrage! What’s next? Blazers and sensible shoes?! I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but now I’m thinking I need to expand my Corning Ware collection. I know, crazy. I always knew I would cherish my mom’s Corning Ware dishes simply because they were hers ( she drive me crazy, but I love her). I just never thought I would actually find the God awful things practical.

Getting older is scary business. Scary business, indeed.