I Froze My Mother
Yesterday, the strangest thing
I’ve ever seen occurred.
I froze my mother in her tracks
with just a single word.
Her arms went limp, her eyes got wide,
her fork fell on the floor.
I’ve never seen my Mom
exactly act that way before.
I got a little scared at first,
and kept my fingers crossed,
but when she blinked and laughed,
I knew she’d started to defrost.
I’ll never know for certain
what made her freak and freeze.
She asked me if I wanted more,
and all I said was “Please.”
And then, today, she made my lunch,
I told her “Thanks!” and then,
my very silly mother went
and froze right up again.
— Ted Scheu
Copyright © 2009. All Rights Reserved. From I Froze My Mother: And Other Seriously Funny Family Poems. Young Poets Press. Reprinted by permission of the author.
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About this Poem
This was one of the earliest poems to tumble out of my pencil. Ah, the magic and power of politeness—with moms and everyone—it makes good stuff happen. I highly recommend it.
From I Froze My Mother: And Other Seriously Funny Family Poems
Ted Scheu is fast establishing himself as one of the top poets for children in the US. In I Froze My Mother and Other Seriously Funny Family Poems he manages to capture—with honesty and loads of rich, ironic humor—all the dreams, screams, groans, and giggles of family life, seen through the clear eyes of a child. Children ages 6 to 11 find rhyming answers to nagging questions about dealing with puzzling parents and siblings. Titles include “I Froze My Mother,” “The Alien in Our Bathroom,” “My Father is a Baby,” “How to Beat a Bully,” and “Scream Quietly, Please.” Sprinkled in among these 58 fun and funny poems are startlingly beautiful photo illustrations from the camera of Peter Lourie. His black and white, close-up images of kids perfectly compliment the adjacent poems. This updated edition of “I Froze My Mother” is one of the freshest collections of poems for kids to tumble down the stairs in years.
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About the Author
Ted Scheu (pronounced “shy”) is a children’s poet and teacher from Middlebury, Vermont who is often introduced as a 3rd grader stuck in a grown-up’s body. He is a former elementary teacher (and naval officer, banker, advertising copywriter, and carpenter), who started writing funny poems seriously about 20 years ago. His poems are published over two dozen anthologies in the US and UK, and in six collections of his own: I Froze My Mother, I Tickled My Teachers, I Threw My Brother Out, Now I Know My ZBCs, Getting the Best of Me, and his latest, a tribute to teachers through kids’ eyes (Ted’s kid-eyes) called, Someday I’ll be a Teacher.
His poems are featured in over two dozen anthologies around the world, including in two amazing anthologies from National Geographic, The National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry, and The Poetry of US. Ted is also super proud of a poem of his that appears a marvelously-sleep-inducing anthology from Little, Brown and Co. called, One Minute till Bedtime.
When he’s not writing humorous poems about kids’ lives, Ted spends about 100 days a year visiting schools around the country. He shares his poems, and mostly helps young writers find their own voices in writing workshops, and to have the kind of fun with poems he never had as a kid. Ted tries to begin (and sometimes end) a poem every day, and when he’s not writing or visiting schools, he loves to eat cereal with lots of milk, and ride his bike—just like any kid his age.
If you haven’t ventured yet to Ted’s website, you’re in for a tickle when you do. Ted and his ‘cousins’ will entertain you. It’s all at www.poetryguy.com.
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