I Had it so Good

I'm sensing another round coming on of, I'm sorry, Mom, for the things I did when I was a kid.
You know, those certain feelings you get after taking a trip and answering, "Are we there yet???" a bazillion times. Or the sinking sensation you have in your stomach when your teen is out too late, and the phone rings. Sometimes it's simply no, it isn't ever simple(!)- going shopping for school clothes. But, whatever it is - and whenever it happens - sometimes we moms have a sudden urge to call our own moms and apologize for the things we did as a kid. Because we didn't know what it was like to deal with our whiny selves. *ahem*
Have you been there?

I was there once again Sunday evening.

I was standing at the sink washing green beans, snapping off the ends and tossing the beans into a pan. For a moment I re-visited the dream of having my own garden in the back yard. How great would it be, I thought, to have my own garden? To grow all the green beans I want, and tomatoes, and zucchini, and squash, and strawberries. And maybe even some corn...
But we don't really have a good place for a garden. And I can only imagine how difficult it would be to keep all the local critters from helping themselves to my hard work. But, but...I would so love to have a garden and grow my own vegetables, and snap my own beans, and can my own tomatoes.

And, just like that(!) I was transported to a memory from my childhood.
I was sitting on the porch with my mom and my sister, grumpiness all over my face, as I snapped the ends off of a bazillion green beans and broke them into 1-inch pieces. Grandma Peggy had a garden behind her house, and every summer she gave us lots and lots of green beans. That is, every summer we HAD TO go to her house and spend DAYS (It was really probably only an hour or two, but it felt longer to the younger me.) picking beans. And then we came home and spent DAYS (^^^Same.^^^) sitting on the porch getting the stupid beans ready for my mom to freeze.
And I hated that task.
I whined and complained about having to do it.
The stupid bean chore was almost as torturous as stringing cranberries and popcorn every December to put on the Christmas tree.
Nearly ruined my life, so I thought.

But Sunday evening as I stood by the sink preparing the green beans for dinner, I pondered how good I had it as a kid:
*Fresh green beans from my grandma's garden. Every summer!
*My grandma labored and toiled - planting, weeding, watering, tending - and I got to benefit from the bounty of her work. (Not to mention the corn on the cob she also gave us.)
Ahhh, I was a kid. And I didn't appreciate how fortunate I was - to have a grandma who gardened, and a mom who knew how to preserve the produce. I only knew I didn't like chores.

I see things so differently now - as an adult.
It makes me want to apologize to my mom.
And it gives me hope that one day my kids will realize how good they had it, too. *wink*