Mother's Day

I'll never forget the moment I became a mother. I had found out in October and in May we purchased all the baby furniture and got to work creating a  nursery for our Daughter. She was born in June.

I remember the first time I held her, how she 'just fit', how we marveled  how much she looked like my niece who had been born fourteen weeks prior. How her head and hair color and eyes were just like Husband's. How, at almost a month, when she smiled for the first time, she had only the one dimple in her left cheek, just like me.  How all that dark hair fell out and came back blonde, like mine.

She was a big baby, weighing over nine pounds, one ounce more than Husband had weighed at birth. An early talker, a late walker.

Telling jokes by the time she was two, her sense of humor delighted us.

As she has grown older, her cheekbones are high, like mine, she is very pale, like me. She is tall, like me, and skinny, like me (was). People don't know if they are speaking to me or to her over the phone, and sometimes Husband can't tell either, if he's in the other room.

She sings like I do, writes like I do, and draws like Husband. She hates math (who doesn't, in our house?)

She's mine, all mine.

Okay, she's really the good Lord's, who gave her to me for a season, to raise her in a godly home, to teach her His ways and to love  her as He loves her.

And I hope I have done that.

And Daughter, I also hope that she - your birth mother - would be proud and pleased with me, for I know she couldn't  help but feel that way about you.

Daughter, I love you more than life.

I thank God every day for you, the gift you are.

In case you've been vacationing under a rock for the last couple of weeks, I wanted to mention that Sunday is Mother's Day.

Oh, ho! It did surprise a few of you (guys). Well, glad I could be of service.

Now, here's the deal: Get what your mother wants, not what you want her to have.

Figure it out. It ain't that hard.

Ask her.

If she says nothing, well,  maybe it is that hard. But anyway, one of the things she wants most, unless you are, like, a psycho-killer, is to spend some quality time with you. Ta-da!

I am not the bashful type, and I let Daughter and Husband know what I want. No problemo, ever. That way I get something I really like and can be excited about.

Daughter usually makes me a great card, one I keep because it comes from her hard work and artistic talent. Husband's cards are usually well thought out choices, and I keep them too.

I used to struggle about what to get my mother, but now she expects a hanging basket every year, and I am glad to oblige. This year, she also wants Husband to plant a hosta for her, which he will happily do. I usually write her a short letter, too.

We don't have grandparents anymore, and Husband's mother has passed on, too. So, all we have left is my mother, and I'm so thankful I do.

She's been a mother for a little over fifty-nine  years, thanks to me, whereas I've only been a mother for twenty-two years.

I've learned a great deal about mother/daughter relationships since becoming a mother, much more than I ever did as a daughter.

The daughter's prospective is fraught with childlike, selfish views that I don't think ever really go away. We spent too long in that part of the relationship for it not to be a permanent wash over our vision.

But that's okay, I guess, because mother's seem to view their children, no matter what the age, as still being children.

When Daughter was about six months old, I guess, I was on the telephone to my mother, just chatting. I  mentioned we weren't going to the grocery store until Friday, payday.

My mother, in a very hushed and serious tone asked, "Does the baby have enough to eat until then?"

Take into consideration that I was thirty-six years old, had a great job, as did my husband, and we were far, far away from starvation.

I pray every day that God will guide me in this sudden motherhood of an adult child. It's very difficult, because we do continue to see them as our, well, babies.

There, I said it.

Anyway, hope all you mommies out there have a great Mother's Day.  I plan on it!