In honor of my Mother

I think that once you are a mother you either become more critical or more amazed by your own mother. I definitely became more amazed. I have never really been critical, I always knew what a great mom I had - but it definitely took having kids to really appreciate what a gem me and my brothers and sisters had. For those of you who don't know my mom, here are some reasons why, and for those of you who do, I am sure you will all agree with my list.

• She truly made us all feel loved. My mom had 5 children (3 girls and 2 boys), and we all honestly think we are the favorite. We can kind of joke about how we all think that, but deep down we are all HONESTLY thinking, "but I really do know that I am really her favorite." We never really had sibling rivalries because she shared her attention with all of us and made us all feel like we were special. I think this is especially noteworthy when it comes to my two younger brothers. They are both VERY athletic, but both approach sports in a very different way. But yet they always supported each other in their athletics and did not compete - they are so close in age and play the same sports - so it could have been easy for them to be rivals. Now that I have two boys, I have been watching closely on how she was able to do this.


• She is always serving her family and guests. She is the best host. She never ever just sits down. She is always the last to eat because she is making sure everyone else has everything they could ever need (more water, ketchup, warm rolls, another fork, etc). This is all still true even when we are not at our house, she just has to make sure everyone is happy, My Aunt Cathy is the same way - when they both get together it seems everyone and everything is taken care of. My little cousin Ella came over to our house with another friend and told her, "aunt Michelle is the best, if you ask her to do anything she will do it." So her friend said, "Michelle will you make me cookies?" Next thing you know my mom is making cookies.


• She will do anything for her kids - yet we are all self-sufficient and independent. My mom is seriously such a mother. It will be ten o'clock at night and my brother Daniel will be on the couch watching TV and say, "I am hungry, will you pour me a bowl of cereal?" and of coarse she will. We tease her about it - but she did it for all of us, even now when I am at her house and I say I am thirsty, she is right there pouring me a glass of water. Yet, despite her wonderful nurturing, I believe we are all hard working, self-sufficient, and independent. We all know how to clean, do laundry, cook, budget, and serve others.
• She was a stay-at-home mom. This doesn't really sound like an attribute, but with my mom it is. Her and my dad sacrificed a lot for her to stay home with us. Not only was she at home with us, but she acted like it - she took her responsibility as a "homemaker" very seriously, a quality I am trying very hard to emulate. We had after school snacks freshly baked as soon as we came home, we had home cooked dinners, and she always offered to make us whatever we wanted for breakfast. Our house was not only always clean, but it was always nicely decorated with random candy dishes throughout the house.
• She is still a mom to her last child. This may seem like a silly thing, especially for one of her older kids to say - but my admiration for my mother has grown so much over the last few years as I have watched her raise her last children. She is as much a mother to them as she was to me and my sisters. Sometimes me and my sisters laugh about it because we think it is funny, we will be hanging out with her and at like 2:00 she has to leave because she wants to be home when Daniel gets home from school (Daniel is 17), we snicker and tell her he will be fine, but in all reality, I always had a mom there when I got home from school - why shouldn't he? And sometime I will be on the phone with her around 2:00 and she will be making Daniel cookies for his after school snack. I LOVE that she didn't get "burned out" with her last kids like so many other parents do. I think it is a testament to the kind of hard-working, kind, spiritual sons she is raising.
• She DEEP CLEANS her whole house every Monday. My ENTIRE life every Monday is cleaning day - not just Monday morning - but pretty much all day. Chores that some people only do once a month or a few times a year gets done every Monday at our house. When it was summer time we all had to clean all day (expect for one of us got to watch our little brothers), and during the school year we had to come home from school and clean. Now, even with most her kids gone, she still dedicates every Monday to cleaning. When I first went away to college, my first Monday away from home, I woke up and cleaned our whole dorm room - I did that every Monday. To be honest, I do not deep clean our whole apartment every Monday, but I do clean every Monday, at least something - just to keep the tradition alive - and I do plan on doing it when my kids are old enough to help. On top of Monday cleanings, she usually vacuums and sweeps several times a day and almost always has the prep dishes done before we sit down to a meal. I did get this habit from her, I just can't sit down to dinner unless all the prep dishes are already done. My mom's motto is "Snip as you sew, clean ad you go."
• She is such a good "boy's mom". This isn't to say she wasn't a good "girl's mom" - she definitely was, but now after having two boys, this is a quality I am just now seeing. She would stand outside for hours and pitch balls to my little brothers and then chase the balls down the street so she could come back and pitch them again. She is SO supportive in all of their sports, but keeps the perfect balance of not being over-bearing or pressuring them too much. She has a great relationship with them and it appears as though they can talk to her about their lives, something that is often hard for teenage boys to do.

I feel like I could go on forever, and I am sure I have missed a lot of things. But basically my point is that I have the best mom in the world. Our family is still young, but I think it is already safe to say that she raised all five of her children to be high-functioning, hard-working, kind adults who have very strong testimonies of the gospel, and who will be able to go on and raise their children to be the same. I have NO CLUE how she did it - but I pray that I will be able to emulate her in some way.

I love you mom, and am so grateful for all the things you did. It was all the little things that made our childhood so wonderful and those things are still enriching our lives today. I hope you had a happy mother's day. Thank you!