A Truly Authentic Mom

My sister Brenda had a wonderful post on her blog yesterday about being a truly authentic mom. At the end of her post she "tagged" me and she left me the following compliment:

My younger sister Kim: She has 2 super cute boys that are growing up to be true gentlemen. She can saves tons of money every year by cutting coupons and working the ads and as far as I know keeps a spotless house, not to mention she is the primary president in her ward.

As much as I wish my house were always spotless, I was flattered by her kind words. I'm not as clever as she is in writing such a fun post, but I've been meaning to post this story for a few weeks. I thought it adequately portrayed my "true authentic momness" as much as anything else.

We were eating dinner the other night (which of course consisted of Tyler making a mess out of a biter biscuit, Ken & I actually eating, & Abraham running around the front room playing with his cars) when the phone rang. We didn't get to it in time & saw on caller ID that it was our neighbor across the street. I decided I'd finish dinner & then call her back. A few minutes later, we hear Abe, "There's a firetruck outside." We didn't think twice about it, assuming he was playing with one of his dozen firetrucks he owns. Then we hear it again, "Mom, there's a firetruck outside." Ken & I continued to eat. Finally, after his third attempt, "Mom, there's a firetruck outside Abraham's house." I thought maybe I should just go & look. Sure enough, with lights blazing, 2 firetrucks were parked right outside our house. Remembering the phone call from our neighbor, I grabbed a pair of shoes & went running out the door. I found my neighbor in her driveway. She'd come home from work & found her carbon monoxide detector going off. She'd continued into the house, intending to check it, when she heard their other carbon monoxide detector going off. That was enough to rattle her & she called 911. When the firetrucks arrived, they fortunately found that it was a fluke coincidence that both of her detectors ran out of batteries on the same day. Once I found there was no real emergency, my authentic momness kicked in. I ran home, threw a coat & shoes on Abraham & grabbed the camera. I walked straight up to the firemen & with my best paparazzi voice explained that my son really loved firetrucks & I wondered if I could get some pictures with them & their brightly flashing trucks. They kindly acquiesced. Abe was happy for days that the firemen had come to visit him.

Look at admiration on his face. I love that Abe totally had his hand on the fireman's leg!