Amanda Lamb: Senior moment

There's nothing like watching your children interact with your parents. The relationship that skips a generation is all about unconditional love and joy without the responsibility.

Because my mother is so energetic and still works fulltime as an attorney, my children don't realize that she is seventy. But recently she has been having a problem with her hip, which affects her ability to walk long distances. I suggested that she ask her doctor for a handicapped placard, which she did.

Most of the time when we are together, I drive and drop her off and pick her up at the door of wherever we are going. But one day on spring break, we happened to be in her car. There were no parking spots close to the door of the building where we were going.

"Mom, don't you have a handicapped placard? We can park there," I said, motioning to a handicapped spot nearby. She took out her placard and fastened it on the rearview mirror.

"What's that?" my youngest daughter asked, poking her head into the front seat.

"It's a sign that you get from a doctor when you have a medical condition that prevents you from walking very far, so you need to park close to the door," I said trying to explain the situation in diplomatic and kid-friendly way.

She paused, looked at the placard, and then back at her grandmother and said, "Well, then I need one too."

"Why?" my mother and I asked simultaneously.

"Because I'm always constipated," she said with a serious tone.

That day my mother had trouble walking into the building, not because of her hip, but because she was still laughing so hard.