Happy Birthday to Mom

Today my mom turned 60. If she lives to be as old as her mom, she still has 1/3 of her life to live (and if I live to be as old as her mom I have lived over 1/3 of my life).

So to honor my mom I am writing down how great of a mom I have for the world to see.
If I were to sum up my mom in 3 attributes they would be giver, servant, and rememberer.

Early memories of mom revolve around holidays and food. My mom is a great cook and an even better baker. Most food was made in the oven and I was there helping. Mom gave me the gift of being able to make a meal and the desserts that come after them. This may not seem like much for those that can cook, but I know a few people who spend most of their time eating out because they don’t have the skills or desire to make their own meals. I also had my first math lessons following recipes (mainly multiplication to double the batches of cookies.) The best memories are of double batches of CCCs with only about 1 or 1 ½ of the dough actually making it in the oven. I was also taught the fine art of eating vanilla cake batter. Even though mom was a super cleaner, she allowed me to help out with the baking, messiness and all. There may have been times when I was asked to stand back, but I don’t remember them, but overall, mom took the time to let me be near to her while she was making dinner.

My mom likes to celebrate holidays. As a family we also like to celebrate birthdays and holidays. There only needed to be a reason and she would come up with the goodies of food and gifts. Growing up there were the main major holidays, but mom also threw in special times for Valentine and St. Patrick’s Day. Birthdays and major holidays were celebrated with big family and while minor holidays were celebrated with special treats that were picked out just for us. Like socks for me or I can’t remember what it was for the others, because mom hit the mark with my gift.

And everything was done with fairness. I secretly think mom would carry a calculator to make sure gifts were equal to the penny, at Christmas mom would make sure we each got the same number of M&Ms and at Easter the same number of Jelly beans. Christmas also meant Chex mix for each person. Mine without pretzels and my brothers without wheat Chex. I still get my own special bag all to myself. I don’t mind pretzels anymore, but I don’t want mom to know because I like having my own bag.

My mom is a great seamstress; however, if you were to ask her, she’d deny it. How can one person make all the clothing for her daughter for many years and not be good at what she does. My grade school pictures were almost always in a dress that mom made. I even have a 3 piece suite that she made out of corduroy. The one caveat is that mom didn’t EVER make things that required zippers. So all my dresses she made had buttons. She even put the fancy decorative buttons on dresses, but wouldn’t think of putting a zipper on anything. That was until I needed her to make a dress for me for a high school play. After almost 10 years of sewing she finally tried one and it turned out great. I think she only made 1 other thing with a zipper before going back to buttons.

Now that she has grand daughters, she is in the dress sewing “business” again and as long as they are little and like frilly dresses, mom makes them… because little girl dresses have buttons. Last year my girls had Nana dresses for Easter. While they didn’t match, my oldest insisted that both girls wear them at the same time and she tried to have them wear them everyday. Those dresses got more than the average mileage out of them and the larger, Holly Hobby, one may end up being thread bear by the time it goes through both girls.

Mom is great at remembering things. Growing up she was my day planner. Long before the days of Personal Data Assistants, I had one. I’d just tell mom and she would remind me with ample time to prepare. Once I was on my own I needed to learn how to use a planner, and there were times I still relied on mom to remind me… maybe that is why I still get calls the day or 2 before birthdays to be reminded of them. Now that I’m married, my husband isn’t thrilled about being my day planner. I’ve tried to use on and have limited success at using them, but I think I already had the best day planner available at the best price, so why should I try to find something to replace it/ her… maybe because she doesn’t live with me and lives over 700 miles away.

Now that I’m a mom, I realize how patient she was with me. Every Saturday would be chore day. I would be sent to my room to clean and every Saturday I’d be up there for hours. I have great memories of making great science experiments from stuff in my room. I think mom was wondering what kind of science experiment was harbored in my room. At the end of the time I was to be done with my cleaning there were almost always threats, and miraculously, I would be done in 10 minutes close enough to her standards. It never occurred to me that my brothers were done quickly and off to new and exciting things. I was excited about the time I had alone to develop potions that could be sold on an infomercial (I’d even practice the infomercial). Now I see my oldest doing the exact same thing when it is time to clean; however, I’m not patient. I feel like I have to lead her around and can only give 1 command at a time or she will be lost in make-believe-land.

All in all, I really like my mom and think she is the best mom I could ever have. I miss her (because she lives so far away), and can’t wait until I can have one of her home cooked meals again.

I love you mom,
Your favorite Daughter

PS If there are any spelling errors or grammatical errors in this, my mom will let me know.

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