To Mom, Because it's True

Mommy,

Happy YOU day! 

Thank you for loving your family and never deserting us—sometimes we got crazy but you STAYED!

Thank you for keeping our basic needs met and caring enough to get us vaccinated and to the dentist on a regular basis so we were pretty DANG healthy and had great teeth. (Thank you for laughing right now at my use of the word 'dang.')

Thank you for keeping us protected from the sun but not making us wear big floppy hats and gloves everywhere.

Thank you for reading to us and reading to yourself so we knew you really actually liked reading. And especially thank you for reading the CLASSICS to us, such as The Count of Monte Cristo, The Secret Garden, David Copperfield, and The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Thank you for letting us go off and play by ourselves and wander around in the woods and the fields so that we grew up with a love of nature and had great imaginations and could skin our knees.

Thank you for teaching us about hard work and responsibility by being a hard-working responsible adult.

Thank you for not putting money or a career above your family and for sacrificing your time by staying home with us when we were little; I KNOW you don't regret it. 

Thank you for teaching us about God's love by showing us UNCONDITIONAL love no matter what mistakes we made. 

Incidentally, thank you for choosing to marry a GREAT man who became our father to help raise us to be the AWESOME kids that we are.

Thank you for going around the house always singing. (Yes, even when it was 6 a.m. and you were the only one up and taking a shower and we were supposed to be up getting ready for school but it was 6 AM so why in the world would we be up but at least we didn't have to set an alarm.)

Thank you for encouraging us to follow our DREAMS and never telling us anything was impossible or stupid. (Like even when I wanted to be a jockey, an Olympic gymnast, an Olympic figure skater, and a dolphin trainer and we didn't have horses, I couldn't do the splits, we didn't live near a skating rink and I was afraid of water and couldn't swim.)

Thank you for teaching us the value of a good long walk to work out stress, blow off steam, have a talk with someone, or just to get out and get MOVING. 

Thank you for your spontaneous gifts—like SPURTLES—just because you have great joy in giving.

Thank you for your love of plants and flowers so that your home could be a stop on a Better Homes and Gardens tour, your office is a jungle, and I am never without plants even if mine die by some strange alien fungus infection—you always bring me another one that's healthy.

Thank you for laughing a lot. Lots of laughing. 

Thank you for reading my blog, for checking every day to see if I have written a new post, and for telling people about my blog. (BIG CHEESY GRIN.)

Thank you for always having an ABUNDANT supply of CHOCOLATE because not only do you share it—sometimes—but then I don't have to feel guilty for not buying you any for Mother's Day! (another BIG CHEESY GRIN.) 

I LOVE YOU MOM!