This is my mom.

Time does things to people.  We change as we get older, and yet I think being a mother brings out the very best of who we were when we were little.  We want our children to have their dress up times.  We want them to sing into the Mr. Microphone and dream of being a Solid Gold Dancer.  We pass on the smell of fresh bread, sitting on the counter at the butcher shop.  The good stuff, the cream.

When we take on the daunting task of parenting, our youth, Hot Wheels Cars or Easy Bake Ovens, are what we hope most to give to our children.

Mothers never wish their own hardships on their children.  They filter through their stuff, their childhood, leaving behind any tears on the pillow or scary subway rides.  What is left is what they offer up to their babies.  Cowgirls, summers at the beach, and the smooth cheek kisses they remember.  Cherish.

Mothering is hard work.  It can be exhausting, often thankless, and occasionally heartbreaking.

Mothers have to come to the task prepared.  Pony rides and finger paints must prevail because when children need you, and they will need you forever, you have to be able to dig up those memories, for some moms it may be just one memory, but you have to find it.  Because those memories, the twinkling parts of your own childhood, are where you start to build the magic for your own children.

I’m sure my mother’s childhood wasn’t perfect, or easy, but from my view, as her daughter, she was a cowgirl.

She is love overflowing, kisses, and listening, silly, and the glass always half full.  I’m not sure what her mother gave her, or her mother’s mother handed over to my Nanny, but through all of the challenges of growing up, there must have been some glitter because my mother found it.  She held those precious memories in her hands and passed those wide eyed childhood moments on to me.

Life is never easy, but being a mother is a gift because it requires us to move through our own crap quickly and provide the magic, the joy, for the childhoods we are shaping.

Happy Mother’s Day, Cowgirl.  I love you.

That’s all from the laundry room.  Check Under Your Bed.

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