thedrifter
05-10-09, 08:01 AM
Local and National News - Kootenai County, Idaho
Saturday, May 09, 2009 - 10:08:31 pm PDT
'It's a mother's job'
By TOM HASSLINGER
Staff writer
Sons, daughters show their appreciation in their own way
COEUR d'ALENE -- So it begins.
Bumps, bruises, scrapes, stitches, late nights, lost things, troublesome friends, worse boyfriends, fist fights, fast girls, flipped cars, crass mouth and on and on.
But it begins with a doll -- a lost doll -- by the name of Suzie, who belonged to 3-year-old Madison, who lost it from her stroller when her mother JoAnne Burke was taking them for a walk last week.
JoAnne thinks Suzie fell out somewhere downtown on Coeur d'Alene Avenue.
All Madison knows is Suzie is gone.
So JoAnne is combing their route, hanging signs and handing out fliers looking for her daughter's lost doll -- her $5 doll.
"If it matters that much to her it should matter that much to me," she said. "It's a mother's job. My mother would have done the same thing for me. Besides, who else will do it?"
Exactly.
Mothers, this one is for you.
There's JoAnne, pounding the pavement and stapling signs, beginning years of coming to the rescue with which every mom everywhere must be familiar.
"I wouldn't call it a lifetime of bailing out," said Mayor Sandi Bloem, mother of five kids, before stopping short of coining it anything different.
"Well," she said. "I'd have to think about it."
And for the rescuing and raising, sons and daughters everywhere try to show their appreciation on Mother's Day with cards, calls and flowers -- small but significant tokens for what some kids put their mothers through.
There's 20-year-old North Idaho College wrestler Tate Collins, who had to call his mom Robin after he flipped his car "driving too fast," and again for being out too late, but that call came courtesy of the highway patrol.
Blessed (or cursed) with unconditional love, Robin forgave him both times. And for Mother's Day, she'll get a card.
"But I show her affection daily," he said, perhaps realizing the small gesture considering 20 years of Tate. "Every night when I'm at home and she's going to bed I give her a hug and a kiss and tell her I love her."
Which can mean a whole lot more to mom than a Hallmark card.
"Those are the things that mean everything to me," said Nancy Lowery, Hayden council president and survivor of raising eight kids -- a job which left her "sleep deprived for 10 years."
"But then they call out of the blue and share something from their day with me, even if it's just a sunset they saw, that's what makes it all worth it," she said.
But the list of stresses is as long as it is varied.
For 19-year-old Brian Hilland's mom, it's that he just joined the United States Marines.
"I can't go into the recruitment office now without her crying," he said.
For Travis Lamb, 19, it's every time his high school called to tell his mom Darci he wasn't there.
"The stress I put her through," Travis said.
Councilman Mike Kennedy shaved his head two days before his senior pictures, which earned him two days of silent treatment from his mom, and Ron Edinger's mother had the intuition to wake up every night to go out and find her son before the California police could.
"She was the backbone of the family," said Edinger, who rode his clean record all the way to a seat as Coeur d'Alene mayor and current City Council president. "We were always staying out too late getting into trouble. I didn't think she knew what she was talking about at the time but I look back now and it's the same things I told my daughters."
And then there's JoAnne, stomping around the neighborhood a week before Mother's Day, looking for Suzie, the little doll that means the world to Madison, her firstborn.
"It's exactly what my mom would have done," she said. "What mattered to us mattered to her."
"Next," she said, still in pursuit of the doll. "She'll lose her homework, her earrings, her purse. She'll lose that at the skating rink. What else? Coats. Kids are always losing coats."
Ellie
Saturday, May 09, 2009 - 10:08:31 pm PDT
'It's a mother's job'
By TOM HASSLINGER
Staff writer
Sons, daughters show their appreciation in their own way
COEUR d'ALENE -- So it begins.
Bumps, bruises, scrapes, stitches, late nights, lost things, troublesome friends, worse boyfriends, fist fights, fast girls, flipped cars, crass mouth and on and on.
But it begins with a doll -- a lost doll -- by the name of Suzie, who belonged to 3-year-old Madison, who lost it from her stroller when her mother JoAnne Burke was taking them for a walk last week.
JoAnne thinks Suzie fell out somewhere downtown on Coeur d'Alene Avenue.
All Madison knows is Suzie is gone.
So JoAnne is combing their route, hanging signs and handing out fliers looking for her daughter's lost doll -- her $5 doll.
"If it matters that much to her it should matter that much to me," she said. "It's a mother's job. My mother would have done the same thing for me. Besides, who else will do it?"
Exactly.
Mothers, this one is for you.
There's JoAnne, pounding the pavement and stapling signs, beginning years of coming to the rescue with which every mom everywhere must be familiar.
"I wouldn't call it a lifetime of bailing out," said Mayor Sandi Bloem, mother of five kids, before stopping short of coining it anything different.
"Well," she said. "I'd have to think about it."
And for the rescuing and raising, sons and daughters everywhere try to show their appreciation on Mother's Day with cards, calls and flowers -- small but significant tokens for what some kids put their mothers through.
There's 20-year-old North Idaho College wrestler Tate Collins, who had to call his mom Robin after he flipped his car "driving too fast," and again for being out too late, but that call came courtesy of the highway patrol.
Blessed (or cursed) with unconditional love, Robin forgave him both times. And for Mother's Day, she'll get a card.
"But I show her affection daily," he said, perhaps realizing the small gesture considering 20 years of Tate. "Every night when I'm at home and she's going to bed I give her a hug and a kiss and tell her I love her."
Which can mean a whole lot more to mom than a Hallmark card.
"Those are the things that mean everything to me," said Nancy Lowery, Hayden council president and survivor of raising eight kids -- a job which left her "sleep deprived for 10 years."
"But then they call out of the blue and share something from their day with me, even if it's just a sunset they saw, that's what makes it all worth it," she said.
But the list of stresses is as long as it is varied.
For 19-year-old Brian Hilland's mom, it's that he just joined the United States Marines.
"I can't go into the recruitment office now without her crying," he said.
For Travis Lamb, 19, it's every time his high school called to tell his mom Darci he wasn't there.
"The stress I put her through," Travis said.
Councilman Mike Kennedy shaved his head two days before his senior pictures, which earned him two days of silent treatment from his mom, and Ron Edinger's mother had the intuition to wake up every night to go out and find her son before the California police could.
"She was the backbone of the family," said Edinger, who rode his clean record all the way to a seat as Coeur d'Alene mayor and current City Council president. "We were always staying out too late getting into trouble. I didn't think she knew what she was talking about at the time but I look back now and it's the same things I told my daughters."
And then there's JoAnne, stomping around the neighborhood a week before Mother's Day, looking for Suzie, the little doll that means the world to Madison, her firstborn.
"It's exactly what my mom would have done," she said. "What mattered to us mattered to her."
"Next," she said, still in pursuit of the doll. "She'll lose her homework, her earrings, her purse. She'll lose that at the skating rink. What else? Coats. Kids are always losing coats."
Ellie