My Mom

My kids are napping, and I'm preparing for a game night tonight (bunko!) with some of the moms in my little group. We had our first game last month, and it was splendid. My turn to host; actually, the first time I have hosted anything (apart from a three-kids in the bath circus right after Thad was born) since we moved up to Coeur d'Alene. This house is big enough to have people here! It's a very exciting time. So, anyway, I'm baking and doing what I do second best (perusing the useless site known as facebook), and I come across this article (read it!) that a couple of my friends have read. I read it. I smirk, I cry, I nod my head knowingly to no one. And then I started to think about my mom.

You see, she was your basic Susie Homemaker. She didn't leave the house with her hair unkempt. Her idea of "lounge" clothes were not ratty sweatpants; it was always a colorful, matching-pieces track suit. She baked cookies and cupcakes for my classmates. Our house was always clean and polished with beautiful framed artwork and baskets filled with dried flowers. The pillows on the couch were always in their place, as were the ghost place settings on the formal dining room table. I didn't appreciate how much effort went into this well-manicured home until I had my own, and those damn child-shaped tornadoes tear everything down as soon as I put it up. She must have been so stressed.

But the point here is, in relation to the article, those things are not the things I cherish most about my mom. I couldn't care any less if the vacuum lines in the carpet form a perfect backgammon board; I love that my mom and I talk like girlfriends. Living so far away, our conversations are really all that we have to work with. I can call my mom on my lunch break, just to chat. Who else does that? I mean, it's your mom. My mom has never felt like an obligation to me; she is not a fixture that I take for granted. She always takes my side, and she can always tell by the sound of my voice when something is truly wrong. Growing up, she was a daunting woman; she taught me, without really trying, how to be strong and how to stand up for those you love, against the world if necessary. Now, I see how tired she is, and I bet it's partially from all the fighting she did for us when we were kids.

I don't have a concise conclusion for these thoughts. My mom is... She just is. And she continues to be the voice in my head, pushing me further and onward to be the best mom and person I can be. My kids are lucky to have her, both as my conscience and as their grandmother.