Growing up, my best friend's mother, quite a character, used to wag her finger at my friend and tell her she'd get her karma when she became a mother. Well, actually she didn't use the word "karma." But that's what she meant. And I wouldn't have been surprised if she did. The Ogle family was always light years ahead of ours on the progressive thought food chain. We lived in the South in the 1960s and everyone I knew went to the First Baptist Church of Taylors, S.C. "Karma" was not in our vocabularly. Nonetheless, Susie, her daughter, used to ruminate on that warning. And now that I've got a kid of my own–who, because of her autism will be a kid for a continued portion if not the rest of her life–I know Ms. Ogle was right.

Karma.

I see it everyday. I don't know if it was so much about what goes around comes around regarding my interactions with my mother, but my older sisters? Definitely. As a mother now, I think about the payback frequently. Like the time I traded my older sibling's emerald ring for another friend's blue plastic Batman ring. Not a fair trade? My sister didn't think so, either. Neither did my mother. I'm pretty sure I got a spanking from one of my parents. Again, it was the 60s and my behind is pretty sure my parents never read Dr. Spock.

The ring is the biggest infraction that I can remember from my lil' sisterhood but my memory is littered with white noise of many more that I can't seem to call forth into the light of current day right now.

And so we come to this current day with my own kid and I'm reminded this morning of the karma of which Ms. Ogle warned her daughter and I. Yep, sure enough, it's come around.

My kid with autism loves chewy things and…ewww…I have a hunch that's what happened to the ear bud on my mobile phone's bluetooth device. And the one on the new blue tooth that, lucky me–or so I initially thought–got replaced under warranty. It's the mechanism that holds it my bluetooth in place when I drive and multitask around the house and also helps the person on the other end not sound as if they are talking from the inside of a industrial metal trash can.

Truth is, it's like this all the time in my house. Karma rules the roost via my daughter. Grace seems to have an infinty for communication devices. Is she trying to tell me something? Once she chewed through the wires of an old pair of ear buds that matched an older model phone. Try explaining that to the folks at Verizon. "Can you hear me now?" They seemed to have trouble interpreting that one.

Raising my child? Extra expensive. Lots of replacement fees.

Oh, yeah, it's coming to me now….More karma input, the paying it forward part. There was the time I cut off the little fuzzy pom-poms that edged the white cotton curtains in my sister's bedroom. Remember, this was the 60s. I also snipped some of the tassels from the dining room draperies. I gave some to Susie and kept the rest for myself. Again, my mother was not amused. And I'm pretty sure my behind was paddled once again. I remember a big family conference preceding the corporal punishment. But then, of course, we never called it that then. And then there was my middle sister's nice trashcan. I won't tell you what I did with that. A-gain, my family was less than happy with me.

Around the house, I have to hide things from Grace so that I can protect their longevity. Apparently, I shoulda hid the bluetooth, though these days, I'm of the age that in doing so, I woulda likely hid it from myself. I have these cool little bracelets. Recently, she found where they live in my dresser. Now they're history. Shoot. She also makes sport of hiding my ink pens. In recent months she's destroyed about $100 worth of my cosmetics. (Unfortunately, I have a hankering for the good stuff versus the drug store variety.) Lips don't plump according to advertising lore when the sponge on the tip of your fancy lip gloss wand has been extracted by your daughter's tiny teeth for her perhaps sadistic ("I'll get at Mommy," tee-hee) chewing pleasure.

Isn't there some saying that if we knew what a pain in the butt childrearing was going to be before we had our kids, we wouldn't have had them?

Oh, Grace. My forever kid. I guess that means I'm stuck in a karmic pergutory, if I may mix my religions here. I'd really like to graduate from this stage, please. Any holy water out there? Wait? It's quiet in the back bedroom and for a moment there I thought I heard some russeling. Gotta go…Karma alert!