Happy Mother’s Day

Oh man I love Mother’s Day. No, not because I sat in church today with five kids who pulled my skirt up exactly 43 times while vying for a spot practically on top of me, and not because Claire mysteriously got out the door wearing hot pink flip flops, and certainly not because I had to go around wearing only one shoe since I hit a stop sign while riding my bike yesterday and totally scraped up my foot (seriously, I’m a klutz).

No, those aren’t the reasons. I love Mother’s Day because I have the most amazing mother in the whole wide world. Just look at this woman! She’s the most Christ-like, giving, selfless, smart, musical, funny, thoughtful, wonderful person I know. Anyway, when we were really young, my sister and I started this tradition of making a drawing for my mom on Mother’s Day. It was a drawing of our family and all they are involved in at that present time…what they say, where they live, etc. It’s kind of like a “snapshot” to capture what’s happening in our family life right at that moment each year. And it “stuck.” She loved that first one so much that we just had to keep doing it every year whether we liked it or not. I wish I had all the old ones scanned, but here’s the last actual drawing one I did: Last year I got overwhelmed with so darn many people to draw so I sort of switched it up to be pictures of everyone to capture what they’ve been up to for the year:
And I decided that was the way to go. I don’t know if you can click on these and actually read the stuff…if you could you probably wouldn’t get it anyway…sort of inside joke stuff, but you get the idea.
Mother’s Day 2008
To be a Mother.
That was always my big goal in life.
I remember watching you when I was small.
You were magical.
You could do everything for everyone.
You packed all nine of us up and moved us around the world.
You learned and soaked up all the knowledge you could,
and somehow made what you knew seep lovingly into us.
You loved your Savior, and taught us to love Him too.
You taught us to be thoughtful…
by selflessly sacrificing for all those around you
You were the hardest worker but even still…

I looked at you
and longed to be just like you with a sigh…
A Mother of Babies.

Now here I am.
Finally a Mother of Babies myself.
And I think of you each time my heart skips a beat
from loving those babies more than my heart can take…

When Lucy looks up at me as she walks to me
with the biggest dimpled smile on her face,
When Max perks up and glows when I walk into his classroom,
When Grace gives me dramatic hugs and
proclaims me to be “the best mom in the world.”
When Claire wants to play with me over her friends
(very rare, but it has happened),
And when Elle every once in a while looks up at me with her big brown eyes
and gives a heart-felt sigh…
“I wish I could be a mom!”

And suddenly I see myself in her…
that little brown-eyed girl from long ago
who finally got her biggest wish.

Thank you for teaching me to be a mother…
and to love the journey so much.
I love you Mom!