maybe i should have posted this on mother's day

I am not sure how well I remember childhood memories in comparison to others, but there are certain things that stand out.

I have one friend who swears she remembers looking around in her mother's womb, but I have a hard time believing that. She backs it up by saying she remembers a lot of red, to which I say that there are an endless amount of red things in this world that, believe it or not, aren't the inside of a womb.

Good thing, too.

Anyway, one vivid memory is a certain back to school shopping trip to Kids R Us with my mom. I looked forward to this every year. Seriously, it was like Christmas in August. When talking to my friend about these trips, he asked why in the world I had to go shopping to go "back to school" when school was quite literally in the adjoining rooms of both our living room and dining room.

And pajamas would do for both.

But my mom knew how much I loved shopping and also didn't want to make me feel any more different from the kids who actually went to school than I already did. So every end of summer she would tell me how much I had to spend and we would go to Kids R Us.

And that's when I saw it.

It was lavender and baby blue with a pattern of sheep all over it. Frills covered the neck and the ends of the sleeves. It was everything girl. And the best part about this nightgown?

There was only a stuffed sheep that came with it--identical to the sheep that made up the pattern of the nightgown!!!!

I was sold.

But my mom wasn't.

For some reason she thought that simply because I had resisted every nightgown I had ever encountered up until then, leaving them in the back of my underwear drawer forgotten and neglected, that this would end up there too. She thought that because I was a little tomboy with snaggly bangs that were too short for my forehead, a head full of hair that I barely ever brushed, and except maybe on Sundays, was almost always ripping around in cut-off sweat shorts with an unfortunate strawberry stain in the rear, I wouldn't put on that dainty nightgown every night.

She also seemed to think that I only wanted the nightgown for the stuffed sheep that came with it.

And I was offended.

Of course that wasn't the reason.

I was all of the sudden totally into nightgowns. Purply blue nightgowns. With sheep.

She bought it for me. I happily held onto that sheep all the way home. I introduced it to the bazillion other stuffed animals that covered my bedroom floor were stacked neatly on my shelves, and I loved that sheep.

I don't really remember wearing that nightgown past the first night.

You know, I did wear it. Like once. Just to prove my mom wrong.

And now looking back, she was actually totally right.

Any mom knows best stories you want to share?