Mother's Day Reflections

Now that I am a mom, I get to enjoy Mother’s Day as the honoree. It is a day when I can truly reflect on how fortunate I am to be the mother of three beautiful, healthy children. They, in turn, make me feel like a Queen for a day.

I wish I could say that I have always understood what an important day this is for moms. Unfortunately, though I have always loved and appreciated my own mother, it was not until I cleaned caked-on food out of the dining chair seat cushion, pee pee out of the car seat, and throw up out of the carpet that I could start to grasp the relevance of this day.

It was not until I experienced what was to become an ordinary day consisting of a wake time of 6 a.m., breakfast, dishes, laundry, bus stop, snacks, playdate, grocery shopping, lunch, naptime (thank goodness!), snacks, bus stop, dinner preparation, dishes, homework, bedtime routines, and shear exhaustion, that I realized the enormity and responsibility of the duties of a mom.

Not until I became intimately familiar with the thrill of soft, chubby arms grasped tightly around my neck or utter delight in the sound of all of my children playing cooperatively in the next room or the raw power of an unprompted “I love you, Mommy,” when it comes from a high-pitched, sing-song voice behind me as I drive in the car did I begin to understand the complex relationship of a mother and her child(ren).

This day is not just a day to be honored for all that we as moms do for our families and our communities, but it is a day for moms to meditate on this gift that we have been given: the task of loving, nurturing, educating, and training our children for their place in the world as adults. Who I am as a mom is in large part because of my mom’s influence, and someday my children will come to understand that their mom helped shape who they are as parents.