I love being Mom

My heart has been full.  Yesterday afternoon, it was perfect.  It was perfectly sunny with a little breeze.  After church we, the family, set off on a walk to our favorite park.  As we walked along the trail, Jared and I arm in arm, I laid my head against his shoulder and looked in front of us and there were our perfectly beautiful 4 children, running and jumping and exploring the trail ahead of us.  Dirt, swords, sticks, laughing, excitement everywhere. To me, that was a perfect mothers day.  That moment.  That overcoming feeling of how lucky I feel.

Today, as I was getting Luke ready for school, I was emptying out his backpack and found his Mother's Day letter to me that he did at school last week. He sat down beside me and smiled as I read it.

Dear Mom,
Thank you for the thing's that you do for us thank you.  I love you Mom. Mom your the best. It makes me feel happy. Your the best of all. I love you the best. I feel special to you. Your the best of our family. We are together forever. 
From Luke

Luke also did a questionnaire about me, ya know the kind of fill in the last part of the line:

My mom is cool
My mom likes me
My mom knows that she dus samthing
My mom says she loves me
My mom wishes she can be a mom
My mom loves me
My mom is fun

My hope for my children is to always know that I love them. I didn't always understand when I was little just how much I would love being a mom.  I am so grateful that my husband also has a wonderful relationship with his mom and he places high importance on me being home with our children. 

I have been influenced for good by my own mother.  My Mom is one of my best friends.  She and I talk on the phone just about everyday.  She has taught me the importance of people over things.  She has shown me the importance of being/playing with my kids.  Each child feels they are her favorite.  I hope my kids each feel like they are my favorite and they truly are.  What more can I say but that I am so lucky to have the mom I have.  I love you Mom.

My mother-in-law, Lana is wonderful. We had the privilege of having her live with us for almost 10 years.  Wow. We loved it.  I loved it. I learned much from her. I loved going down and just talking, long talks about everything. She has shown me the example of family bond. I feel lucky that we have such a good relationship and feel sorry for so many others of my friends that say they don't feel close to their mother-in-law.  Another one of my hopes for my children is that I can also have close relationships with those whom they marry and have their own families with. How lucky I am.

My stepmom, Pat has also been a good friend to me for these so many years. She hasn't ever tried to take the roll of parent because I think she realized she just needed to be a friend.  I have seen her these last couple of years, going thru cancer and recovery just trying to get better and I pray that she will.

My sisters-in-law - As I listen to Rachel complain about growing up with only brothers, I have to chuckle and remember my exact same feelings growing up with 2 brothers.  They would tease and torment me.  Oh how I longed to have a sister.   Now I have 6 sisters-in-law.  Each of them are wonderfully different. I have one sister -in-law that doesn't have children but they have a dog and are very involved with volunteering with special needs people.  Each sister-in-law has taught me things, especially their fierce devotion to their children and helping others.  They each go about it differently but the core feeling is the same - They love their children and their family dearly.

Speaking of sisters, I also feel lucky to have my best friends "roommates" if you will - from college.  Each of us have had many ups and downs over these 20+ years but I still feel that same bond.  We are mothers and we love our children.  I am grateful that we still keep in touch and plan our little getaways to strengthen each other and remind each other of our "chosen" sisterhood.

I have many other friends and neighbors that I have watched and listened and learned from them. Actually I should not put that in the past tense because I will continue to watch, listen and learn.  I think about the quote of "it takes a village to raise a child" -- maybe it should really say "it takes a village to raise a family".  I learn from other moms, dads learn from other dads, kids learn from other kids, on and on...

So to all those whether I chose you (or someone else did for me) as a sister, mom, friend, I know God placed you in my life for a reason and I am grateful.  I love you.  And I truly feel I am the lucky one.