mother's day

I'll post more about my Mother's Day later, but for now, I wanted to talk about my mom.

I love my mom.

She's totally crazy.  Come and join us for a birthday party and you'll know what I mean.

She is patient.  When I was young (okay, so I was in high school) she wanted me to help her in the backyard with some yard work.  Being totally afraid of bugs and bratty I refused to help.  Instead of yelling at me, or taking something away from me, or whatever else she could have done, she calmly made a deal with me:  She would not ask me to help her in the yard for the rest of the summer if I would
do all of the ironing for everyone in the house every week.  I loved to iron and agreed.  I am so grateful that she was patient with me that day.  Although she didn't realize it, I would watch her as she came in and out of the house while she was gardening and I would see the pure joy on her face of having spent time outside in her garden.  She loved (still does) to make the yard beautiful.  If we couldn't find her inside the house once the flowers started to bloom, we knew that we could find her outside talking to her flowers.  Her example has led me to desire to make my yard beautiful as well, now that I have one, however small it may be.

She is (as my sister so appropriately calls her) the "fairy grandmother".  Whenever one of us has a baby she swoops in with her bag of tricks and spends a week us.

I had a difficult and looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong delivery with Mr. Orange.  Mr. Orange spent some time in the NICU.  My mom called every day to make sure we were doing okay.  When he was released from the hospital, Mom came and spent a week at my home.  Because the delivery was so difficult, I had a hard time getting back on my feet.  It was painful to stand, sit, or adjust whatever position I was in.  If Mr. Orange cried, it was hard to get to him.  My mom was literally my arms and legs for that first week home.  She held him, changed him, brought him to me, did my laundry...

I had a better delivery with Miss Pink - scheduled c-section.  Mom came with her bag of tricks and played with Mr. Orange.  It was September and the two of them pulled out all of my overgrown vegetables and flowers, then planted new tulips, pansies and other things that would be beautiful in the spring.  She made batches of cookies, dinner, ironed, cleaned bathrooms, helped me with a certain near-disaster (mom, you should DEFINITELY know what I am talking about), and took us for drives.  She would also talk to me during late-night feedings.

My mom will also drop everything to help out.

A few examples:

A few months after Mr. Orange was born I found a lump in my breast.  It was determined that I would need surgery.  Mom came and watched my little two month old while I went to surgery.  She stayed to make sure we were okay.  (The lump was a fatty deposit, probably caused from the nursing.)

The next spring, Mr. Blue came home from work so sick.  We went to the insta-care and were told to go to the ER.  After two hours of waiting I left Mr. Blue there and went to take Mr. Orange home.  Not sure what to do I called Mom.  She was out to dinner and left immediately to come up and watch Mr. Orange while I went back to the hospital.  Mr. Blue needed an emergency appendectomy.  Mom and I spent that night talking on her bed about anything and everything.

After Miss Pink was born I found another lump in my breast.  Not wanting to mess up nursing and figuring it was the same thing I had with Mr. Orange, I decided to wait to have surgery.  I had surgery the first week of July.  Mom came to watch the kids.  Mr. Blue and I returned home later in the day to find mom and the kids dripping in sweat.  Our AC had gone out and they were sitting the house without fans.  They did take a drive to cool off she told us.

She has come to spend the night with me a time or two when Mr. Blue has been gone on business trips.

Another time she drove to my house at 4:30 in the morning to watch my kids while I trained for a marathon.

Most recently she helped me through my miscarriage.  Not only did she drop all of her meetings (on more than one occasion) to come and help me, she also called and sent cards, just to let me know she was thinking of me.

Those are just a few of the reasons I love my mom.

She's the best.

I love you Mom!