Happy Mother's Day!!!

Chris and I celebrated Mother's Day with our mother's this whole weekend. We took his family out for dinner Friday night, spent the night with his mom, then took my family out to dinner on Saturday. We had a great time, as we always do when we get together with our families.

I drove on the trip home and since I was awake, I found myself reflecting on how incredibly lucky I am. I have a mother who loves and supports me unconditionally, putting most other mothers to shame. My own mothering is often a reflection of hers.

For instance, on the trip down, I asked Sophie to give a drink of her water to Izzy. He started carrying on about not wanting to catch her germs, so I sighed and said, "Sophie, will you please let whiny butt have the first drink?" No sooner had the words left my mouth than I was giggling a little uncomfortably at myself, because, for my entire life, my whole family has always catered to me, always letting me have that first drink. Still today, if one of them gets drink while we're out running around, each of them looks to me and asks if I'd like to have the first drink. That's my mom's doing there. Probably because I carried on so much that she just got tired of listening to me, but that's not the point. Point is, that my sisters are still offering undeserved kindness to me because of the example she set.

Have I ever mentioned how she always finely ground dried onion to add to her dishes, because I didn't like fresh onions.... or finding a large piece of reconstituted ones? When she made spaghetti or Hamburger Helper, she would very carefully scoop out my serving with as little meat as possible, because I didn't care for hamburger. She would always cut the fat off my steaks for me, and find the leanest piece of meat in her barbecued ribs because as much as I didn't care for meat, I disliked that fat even more. Even now, when she makes baked steak, she always puts a little piece of round steak in there for me, because I don't like cube steak.

Outside of the kitchen, she has always been there for us too, my sisters and I. She never missed a single performance, or parent/teacher conference, or anything that any of us three ever wanted her there for. She was always, and still is, our number one cheerleader.

Now I have another mother, my mother-in-law Judy, who also loves me and enjoys my company. I am blessed to have her. She loves her children just as fiercely as my mother does, and as much as I love my own. Chris and I both had similar childhoods, ones in which our mother's love was never hidden, never a question, and now we're both so lucky that we have the same love from our mother-in-laws.

But my largest blessing on this day is that I am a mother myself. I have three fabulous, wonderful, AWESOME children. Every day with them is a blessing for which I give constant thanks. My dad got on the phone last night with me, after we'd got home from their house, to tell me that during our visit earlier in the day, Izzy had been helping him with some yard work. To thank him, my dad reached in his pocket where he had a dollar and gave it to Izzy, telling him that he really appreciated his hard work and he wished he had more to give him, but that was the only dollar he had. Izzy held the dollar back out to my dad and said, "Well here then, you keep it." Dad explained to him that he meant just meant he didn't have any more cash in his pocket, and that was not his actual last dollar, so he was able to talk Izzy into keeping it. Every single day, my kids cause my heart to swell to near bursting, whether it's by doing something kind, or just by stopping their full speed sprints to give me a quick hug and kiss.

Izzy wrote me a poem for today, one that he told me I couldn't publish because part of it came from a very old poem that he didn't write himself. I want to share it here and dedicate it to all of the mothers in my life whom I love so much, and to my children, whom I love more every minute of every day:

Bees have honey
Sun so sweet
Sugar is precious
Roses are red
Violets are blue
But nothing is better than you.