Mother's Day

So I have a few things I want to say in this post, but let me start with the good stuff.

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I have a really great mom. She has given me many things that I could learn from. I'm not saying I've learned them yet, just things I could learn.

She has taught me to be tough or strong or whatever word you want to use here. When the going gets tough and life seems hard, mom gets out there and keeps moving. She doesn't curl up in a ball or expect people to cater to her, she goes and sews a quilt or something like that.

She has imparted to me her love of quilts. I love to sew quilts and decide what pattern to make and help pick out the colors. I would say most of the time, she just gives in to my color choices because I don't think she always likes them, but she's gracious about it.

She listens. For much of my youth days, she would wait up until I would come home from volley ball or where ever and she would be interested in hearing me talk about my evening. Even after I went to school and then left home, she was always interested. Looking back and even now when I talk to her, I imagine she has to be bored some of the time, but she never shoes it.

She loves to help people and reach out and take care of people. I could definitely learn from this.

She has a strong work ethic, that I've caught on to to a certain extent, but not as much as she has. I've let her keep a good portion of that!!!!

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I am a mom now too. It's weird to think about it quite like that. I'm not sure what Amber would say if she could articulate her thoughts. I think today she would say I was a good mom because I let her eat two cookie halves, you know the sandwich cookies, in which I took the half that had the filling and gave her the plain half (Please don't tell her) and got her her own rag to "help" me mop the floor. That ended in cookie crumbs on the newly mopped portion of the floor and a switcheroo game between playing with BOTH rags and taking bites of cookie. We then went outside for awhile where she delighted in walking through the grass, finding sticks, and pulling grass. Next it was a tub bath where she pulled the plug promptly and let her water down and then played in the waterless tub.

I realized something today as I was watching her. I am enjoying this stage of being a mom. I can tell her to go do something and a lot of the times, if they are simple instructions, she can follow through and accomplish them. I'm always impressed with how much she knows. I can interact with her and though she may not say many words, she is generally able to get across what she wants me to know. This is also a scary time, because what all is she catching on to that I don't even realize I am doing?

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So mother's day is Sunday, and I want to say something that won't be widely popular, but I really don't like Mother's Day at all. For the last 3 years, it has been just a bad day for me. The first 30 years of my life, Mother's day was a day on the calendar. I always tried to get a card for mom, for the last 15 years or so, give or take a few, (maybe even take this year but it's not mother's day yet). Enter Mother's Day (in case you haven't noticed, I can't decide if I should capitalize both words, just mother's or none of them. Any insight, please let me know.) 2013. This was the first year, that I was a mother, but nobody knew. Very few people knew about the little baby that had flown away to heaven way, way, WAY too soon. Mother's Day was hard that year. I received some very thoughtful cards and gifts and I was very grateful. Mother's Day 2014 was supposed to be a grand and glorious day. It was my due date. I mean really, what better timing? But alas, that mother's day was even more painful than the previous one, because once again our little one had gone to heaven way too soon. This time we had a visual of what our little Nicole Brooke looked like. We skipped church that year.  Then Mother's Day 2015 came and on that day, we buried my dad. There, while all over the country, people were sending flowers and honoring their mothers, we, as a family, stood by our mom and held on together as we said good-bye to dad's body for the final time.

So do you understand why I don't like Mother's Day? This year, it seems like it might be a good one, but let's face it, Mother's Day will always be bittersweet for me. I love Amber with all my heart, but there will always be a missing face on Mother's Day and the question of wondering exactly what Amber's big sister would be like. Would she live up to the shirt that Amber is currently wearing that says, "My big sister is AWESOME". I know she's living up to that title now, but what kind of a job would we have done in training her, etc. etc. And of course, then there's always the brain twist of how, if we had Nicole, we wouldn't have Amber and that makes my heart sigh because Amber is so very, very special too.

So there you have it, my less than normal view of Mother's Day, but somehow I think there are a lot more people out there for whom Mother's Day makes them sigh a little, maybe blink back a tear, draw on a memory, and send an extra prayer heavenward for the various circumstances that cause a blip in an otherwise, very nice holiday. I think it is nice that we have a day to especially honor mothers and fathers.

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