It's my momma's birthday today. I'm not good at the whole "speaking words of affection" thing, so I'll write out my words and hope that she knows I mean them even if I don't say them out loud. Let me start out by saying my mom is amazing and I'm so happy she was born on this day in 1957. Also, let me say that mothers in general are incredible people. A woman who has children is a woman who has decided to put herself second forevermore, and that's pretty cool.
I'm going to brag about my mom and I don't want anyone to think that this means I don't admire and respect other women or other parenting styles, I'm just appreciating my mom for being the perfect woman to raise me, so here are just a few things about her that I'm grateful for:
I'm grateful we didn't fight. When I would hear girls in junior high and high school talk about their moms, it made me sad a lot of the time. I can't count how many girls would say that they had a huge fight with their mom and they were screaming and yelling at each other over some issue. I know these girls and their moms love each other, but I just couldn't even fathom having that kind of relationship with my mom because we never fought. If I'm looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, she can correct me but I don't recall a time fighting like that. Now, I know there were times I didn't do what she asked and she got frustrated and upset with me but we have never been in a fight.
I'm grateful she was mature. My mom was 26 when she got married, and 37 when she had me. There is nothing wrong with getting married and having children younger than that, but my mom had some things figured out by the time all of us kids came along and that's been pretty awesome. Part of how she was raised played into this, and probably her own personality as well, but she knew how to pick her battles. There were some things she just didn't pressure because in the long run, it just wouldn't matter and I'm grateful that she had the maturity and faith to let us kids figure some things out on our own.
I'm grateful she gave us responsibilities. In order to keep herself sane, I'm sure, us kids actually folded our own laundry growing up. Monday's were laundry days and when we got home from school she'd be sitting there sorting the clothes into baskets and we'd fold them in the living room before taking our things to our rooms and putting them away. We got up in the mornings on our own with an actual alarm clock and were responsible for having things ready to get to school. We had dish duty one night a week and if it didn't get done, no night games for you.
I'm grateful that she kept a nice house. I always see things about a clean house being second priority to happy kids, or things about a messy kitchen and undone laundry meant that a mother is focused on more important things, like her children. But for my mom, it wasn't either house or kids, it was just both. I think that having things clean made my mom feel more calm and less stressed and I never really appreciated when I was younger, but our house was always clean. Sure, we had toys and jackets--oh, and socks and more socks--laying around but one of our "10 item pick-ups" would take care of those things in no time. We didn't have a super nice house, or even super nice things, but what we did have my mom took good care of. When I think of our kitchen, I think of my mom with her yellow rubber gloves on, scrubbing our sink with bleach to make it look nice. People would come to our house and comment on our beautiful new piano which--if I'm correct--is much older than me. That's because my mom took such good care of it.
Speaking of music, I'm grateful she loved music. And not only did she love it, she is an incredibly talented pianist and can sight-read music like there is no tomorrow. I've always been jealous of what I thought was just a natural gift--and part of it is, I'm sure--but not long ago I read a journal that she kept in college while she was studying music. Each entry she made mentioned how long she had practiced that day and she literally spent hours upon hours developing that beautiful talent. I love to hear my mom playing the piano.
I'm grateful she cooked. One staple of my childhood was family dinners. When we were younger, they sometimes ended with people in tears, but we ate together every night and my mom cooked. We hardly ever ate out and that means she's cooked around 6500 dinners for me in my lifetime. We are talking fresh food from scratch practically every night. That's not to mention other meals, especially desserts. Man, my mom makes some mean baked goods. When I came to college some people were marveling over the fact that I made a cake from scratch, and I was marveling at them because I don't think my mom has bought a store bought cake in her life.
I'm grateful she read and cared about education. A good number of our family home evenings were spent going to the library. Her love of reading was instilled in all of her kids. I also remember asking questions like "how do you spell 'choir'?" and she would always reply "how do you think you spell 'choir'?"As infuriating as it was when I just wanted a simple answer, it taught me to *gasp* actually think for myself a little. One thing I always appreciated in school is that she trusted me. She didn't hound me about grades or homework, she assumed and trusted that I'd do what I had to, so I did.
I'm grateful she was pretty hands-off. My mom just kind of let me do my thing. She was, and is, always willing to step in and help me out if I need it, but if she wanted to meddle or nitpick or nag she kept it to herself. She let me try things and do things my way and learn from whatever the results were. Maybe it was a bad idea and sure to fail, but even if she knew it, she didn't say it and let us figure that out on our own which is more valuable than any amount of convincing. She wasn't the mom to get involved with the teachers or coaches to figure my problems out, she let me do it or let me suffer through it if I wasn't willing to figure it out myself.
I'm grateful that she did hard things. I got to watch my mom handle some pretty rough things in life, and learn from her example as she did. While being a grandma is one of her greatest joys, I know she never expected to be a full-time mom to little kids again, but she stepped up to the role when she was needed and I'm amazed by her strength and grateful she got the opportunity to be so close with two of her grandsons.
I'm grateful for her support. It cannot have been easy to raise me. I wasn't crazy or difficult in the ways that people typically think of teenagers, but I was crazy and difficult in other ways. I've got a bit of creative ADD. I jump from one project to the next, each idea a little crazier and more complicated than the last, but she never stifled it even if she didn't understand it. She's also been supportive of me in my volleyball career. She isn't a crazy fanatic who's never missed a game, she just cares. And each year she and my dad found some way to get the money to pay for me to play club volleyball having no idea if it would actually pay off or not.
I'm grateful for her testimony. One of the things I think of first when I think about her is her morning routine. Every morning she would shower and then as she got ready for the day, I could hear the old Book of Mormon tapes playing and I would sometimes listen as a reader retold the stories of Nephi and Alma the Younger. I knew it was important to her. She's been faithful in every calling I've ever known her to hold, even when she desperately wanted to do something other than be a pianist for once.
I'm grateful she's my mom and that I had the privilege of growing up with her to guide me. I'm grateful for her bringing my five awesome siblings into the world and working every day for us to have the best upbringing possible. I'm grateful for her testimony and example to me.
Most of all, I'm grateful because I am who I am because she is who she is. And she is my mommy.
