Manners

When I was a little girl manners were talked about...but not much. I can't even remeber what we were expected to do. I knew what good manners were but I don't think they were enforced . On a rare occaision my dad would tell us to get our elbows off the table. That's about it. We weren't ever even told to write a thank you note! What were my parents thinking?

Oh, there was the time when I few of the parents on our swim team decided to send a bunch of us kids to Cottillion. It was NOT fun, and we just couldn't take the instructor seriously. I did learn a few things though.

As a teenager I was very aware of my manners. I didn't want to appear rude. I would read Emily Post while at the library. I would never have considered bringning something like that home though for fear of ridicule.

When my daughter was born I started setting a good example with her. She never saw me chew with my mouth open, we wrote thank you notes, returned phone calls, said please, thank you, excuse me and I'm sorry. I taught her to not interupt when someone is talking and how to greet someone when meeting them for the first time. She did pretty darn good.

When my son was born thirteen years later I was pretty experienced in the teaching of manners. He learned so fast and well...except for the interupting thing. Maybe it's because he's got Aspergers and is so impulsive. We work on it everyday. He does reach his hand out and shake when he meets someone. He even introduces us to his friends and teachers the right way. It makes my heart swell with pride when he says..." Mrs. Graham, have you met my mom; Beth? I call her Mommy. Mommy this is Mrs. Graham, my principal." Mikey doesn't really like writing thank you notes, but does anyway. He thinks his writing isn't good and would rather draw a picture or write a story... about cats.

This is a photo of Mila and Mikey at my cousin Stephanie's wedding last September. Mikey was so sweet. He walked up to Mila, held his hand out and asked; "Could I have this dance?" How could you pass that up?