Loud and Embarassing

Julieanne told me that they had to go around the class to tell what they liked/disliked about their moms since it is " Mothering Sunday" tomorrow in England. She volunteered that she likes how I am her friend as well as her mom and she likes being able to talk to me. What she doesn't like is that I can be loud and say embarassing things. For instance at hockey and soccer matches I often find myself falling back into the cheerleader mode which is fine in high school but not on the sidelines as the mom when no one else really does that here. Also, add for effect the very obvious American accent and you have an embarassing moment for a child. Nathan has told me that some of the boys mimic me at school saying, "Go Whitehaven! Hustle boys. " Wounded, I replied "Well, they are just jealous because their moms don't come to all of the matches" -so there! Hmph! Anyway, point taken and I have tried to bite my tongue more at the matches but I do have unexpected bursts of 'Julie-ness" that make my children wish they could duck.

One of the most memorable embarassing things to my kids was in London with the Willis family. We were at the infamous Tower of London where hundreds of people were beheaded. The tour guide, the famed Queen's Beefeaters who was quite a dramatic fellow, told us to really get involved so when he told us to reply, "Where are the headless bodies?" I gave it my all, while everyone else in the audience only gave a half hearted reply. As you can imagined, my enthusiastic history major voice boomed over all and the whole Thompson/Willis clan stared. None wanted to be identified with me.

Today I did another embarassing thing at the movie, Young Victoria, which I highly recommend. In a day when it's hard to find good stories that are clean and engaging this was refreshing and historical so a bonus for me! Anyway, I have this way of nodding or making this agreement noise when I particularly like something I hear. Maybe it's activie listening, maybe it's just annoying. Anyway, during the movie, Anna Catherine leaned over and said, "Mom, would you quit agreeing with everything out loud." Oh whoops, didn't even realize I was doing this. I remember one time Emily Freeman calling me out for this. Embarassing. Oh well, at least they still like to be with me - loud and embarassing and all.