Happy Mother's Day

I have just returned tonight, from visiting my parent's all week. The kids and I had a great trip and pictures are to come soon. In the mean time, hope you all have a great Mother's Day. My friend Melissa put together a Mother's Day writing challenge on her blog and I participated. It was great to see how everyone took the challenge in a different direction. I wrote a letter to my mom. You can read the post here. Here is what I contributed:

Dear Mom,

I know that I am not very good at telling you this, but you are a great mom and a great lady. I appreciate all of the lessons that you have taught me. There are too many to name, but here are a few that stick out in my mind.

Thank you for teaching me the importance of education and knowledge. You always made sure that we not only attended school, but were doing our best and striving to succeed. It was never a question of if I would go to college, but which college I would attend. Many of my friend's mom's would check them out of school to go shopping or out to lunch. But you didn't ever want us to miss school. Ever. I thought you were totally uncool and I didn't understand why it was such a big deal. I understand now why it was so important to you.

Thank you for teaching me to be a supportive wife. Dad always worked at least two jobs, one of which required him to work 24 hour shifts. This left you at home doing the many thankless duties of a stay at home mom without very much help. However, I rarely, if ever heard you complain about it. When my sisters or I would complain about not having Guess Jeans and other extremely important things like that, you would tell us, " your dad is out there busting his butt for us so that we can have the nice things that we do have." You always made sure that we appreciated dad and the hard work that he did for our family. This was such a great example to me, especially when my husband was working two jobs and I was in a similar situation.

Thank you for teaching me the importance of taking good care of yourself physically. I know that it was very hard for you to watch grandma not take care of herself and as a result, watch her health decline at such an early age. Instead of taking the same path, you resolved to do better for your children. You always cooked healthy and delicious meals. Even on the rare occasions that we had take out pizza, you always served it with carrot sticks and salad. You take great care of yourself and you are one hot momma!

Thank you for teaching me how to be independent. You have always been a very responsible and reliable person and this is a value that you worked very hard to instill in us. You made sure that each of us knew how to cook and to clean and to take care of a house. One time when I was in 7th grade, I left my cello on the school bus. Instead of making it all better for me, you made me call the school district office and find out the name of my bus driver. Then I had to call information to get her number, and then finally call the bus driver, get directions to her house and find out when she would be available so that I could come pick up my cello. I hated this sort of thing at the time, but was so grateful for later in life as I watched college roommates who were completely helpless and couldn't take care of the most simple of situations by themselves.

I love you mom and appreciate all that you do and have done for me. Only now as a mom myself do I see all of the many sacrifices that you have endured. I know more often than not, I bring up the mistakes that you made instead of the successes that you had. Please do not ever let this make you doubt your success. Look at the five fine daughters that you have raised. You are a great woman and I am blessed by your example. I love you. Happy Mother's Day.