"A Christmas Story" came early this year

They say that when you become a mother, you become YOUR mother. I'm finding that not only is this true... but that I'm becoming everyone else's mother, too.

For example, this morning, it was below freezing here (which is unseasonably early and entirely unwelcome). Since A's winter jacket hasn't come in yet, I had to stuff her into multiple jackets so that she wouldn't freeze. She wriggled experimentally and then whined, "I can't move. I have too much jacket on." And I said without thinking, "Well, you can move when you get to daycare." Then I realized that I was channeling Ralphie's mother from "A Christmas Story." (And if you haven't watched that movie's classic "I can't put my arms down!" scene, well, I don't know what to say to you. I mean, you can watch it for 24 hours straight on TNT on 12/25. Get thee to a tv.)

So while I originally found the scene funny, I now realize that the screenwriter probably heard the same thing from his mother, who heard it from her mother, who... well, you get the gist: as mothers, we are reduced to automatons, mere shells of what we used to be. Now, pardon me, I'm off to chide my child to please, please watch where she's going for the thousandth time today, and then to watch as she trips over her feet nonetheless. If I had a nickel for every time she did that... or every time I spouted a mothering cliche... I'd be off to the Bahamas... I wish.