NOT THE FOCACCIA BREAD!

I know. It’s late in the evening, technically early Tuesday morning, but I was determined to connect with you before going to bed no matter how late it got. We’re still celebrating an absolutely wonderful weekend! Both of my sons are here with my lovely daughter-in-laws and it all started Friday evening with my youngest son, Aaron, and my daughter-in-law, Hayley, attending a wedding rehearsal and dinner for their cousin Schase, and his lovely bride-to-be, Aniah. While those 2 were busy with rehearsal, as Aaron officiated the next day, my hubby and I went with my oldest son, Stephen, and my daughter-in-law, ShaVaughn, to the HIGH Museum of Art to enjoy jazz night with world-class pianist, keyboardist and composer, Madoka Kawahara. She was wonderful!

The wedding and reception were beautiful, whimsical at times. And Aaron’s discourse was a spiritually inspiring expression that emphasized the uniting bond of love, the need for mutual understanding and the requirement of loyalty. The entire congregation was moved to tears at one point. LITERALLY.

At the reception, we danced and bid the couple farewell as they drove away to embark on their new life together. That’s how it all began. However, as usual, my sons always come home with one very specific issue they would like for my hubby and I to address. For Stephen, it was the car. My hubby had a minor accident about a week before Stephen and ShaVaughn arrived. The car's condition was absolutely unacceptable to Stephen, so we were immediately required to file a claim and rent a vehicle while our car is being repaired. Between you and me, I’m actually happy that Stephen expedited the inevitable because my hubby would have tried to find the car parts himself and delay the process. Just sayin. LOL!

For Aaron, it was an issue with our health. He insisted that my hubby and I needed to be more consistent with our workouts and instead of eating out so much we needed to focus on meal prep. I take Aaron’s direction very seriously as he is an on-line personal trainer and accountability coach. Check out his website at foxxfitfam.com and follow him on Instagram at foxxfitfam.

Check out the IG post below.

Aaron believes that:

Motivation comes and goes – but discipline lasts forever.

BUT…Aaron had the nerve, the absolute gall to go through my fridge and tell me that one of my favorites…my focaccia bread needed to be trashed. NOT MY FOCACCIA BREAD! I was devastated. Tomorrow we start a new work out schedule beginning 6:30 a.m. It’s an endeavor in health optimization. But if I’m being honest, it’s also a labor in vanity as I want to be in tip-top shape for my upcoming anniversary in October.

It’s funny how time progresses and roles reverse with our children directing us as time continues to pass. I permit it, even welcome it as Mommy Protocol requires that mothers understand the need to bestow upon our adult children the respect of being heard and accepted, even if their views differ from ours. It demands that we recognize that our adult children still need to hear our voices – the same voice and the first voice they heard in the womb express emphatically that we love them. They must hear us say it and they must see us demonstrate it.

Do you phone your sons and daughters to connect or do you wait for them to call you?

Do you value their worth and honor them with the memories you display? Or do you dismiss their existence and betray their legacy by refusing to capture their past?

The greatest gift we can give our adult children is a sense of being, honor and purpose. The greatest failure as a mom would be to lack the substance to know what is expected of us and to ultimately create a void that is steeped in denial. If you, as a mom, need to make changes to improve the energy you present to your adult children, you can apply the same ideology that Aaron applies to exercise,

“Tweak small daily habits to experience a world of difference.”