Hopes for my Daughter - a Tribute to my Mom

Today is my mom's birthday - a truly awesome person in my life. All my life I thought having a great mom was expected - a mom waiting for you when you got home from school with apples and cottage cheese (why yes, I do like that as a snack), sitting patiently while you give her the litany of your Very Important Day. A mom who effortlessly makes weinerschnitzel for the entire 5th grade class because it's part of your world history assignment. A mom who accompanies you to 50 different stores all over the entire state looking for the perfect prom dress because you know what you want and is it your fault the designers haven't caught up with you yet?? A mom who searches her house and your sisters' houses looking for various kitchen gadgets and items she's sure they borrowed, until she finally calls you at college and discovers you have "helped yourself" to her entire kitchen while she was out of town. A mom who listened long into the night, all day, countless millions of hours on the phone while you shared with her yours ups, your downs, your rants, your raves, your whining, your triumphs, yes every boring detail of your entire life.

I started to realize perhaps I had the best mom in the world - not just a spectacular mom, mind you, which I had figured out sometime in high school - when I went to college and saw the insane mothers of my chums. Mothers who criticized publicly and ranted about what terrible daughters they had. Daughters who hid things from their mothers because of the negativity emitted like a flashing hazard "DO NOT APPROACH" beacon from said mother. Maybe this was just a few moms. Maybe my mother was still the "norm."

Then I got married - lucked into a wonderful mother-in-law mind you - but started to see other mothers in my co-workers. What's this - mothers you don't call regularly? Mothers you don't miss when they live 300 miles away? Mothers who don't know you better than you know yourself? Mothers who are not right all the time (I must say, my mother's most annoying trait is that she is right all the time - not because she says so, but just because she always turns out with the right opinion! Thank goodness I have figured this out years ago and listen to her!!). How strange this world of mothers is! And how incredible my mom is.

And then I had a daughter (and a son). And I have listened to my mother about mothering. "Talk to them. Play with them. Support them. Be there for them." And I have tried to do that. I am not there for them as much as my mom was for me, having entered the "working world" (my mom worked, but somehow managed to be there anyway). But I seem to have a pretty good relationship with my daughter. We do things together. We talk. We laugh. We play. We cry at sad movies (correction, I cry and she laughs at me crying). She tells me about her latest "Mr. Potato-head" (code word for crush). We talk about serious things like sex, drugs, bad choices, college resumes. And oh, how I love her. She is so amazing - a gift from God. Truly. And I hope, above all else, that I am even 1/2 the mother to her that my mom is to me. And I hope that I will always be there for her like my mom still is for me - that I will always have the patience and the love to see what a great gift she is. And that she'll turn to me when those tough times come and those bad decisions happen. That she'll know that I'm there for her, just like I know and have always known that my mom is there for me. Loving me unconditionally.

Happy Birthday Mom - you truly are THE BEST.