Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Let me start off by saying that I know my mother isn’t perfect.  We do things differently, and some days the way she does thing is SO different from the way I do that it frustrates me just because (I got the OCD/perfectionist gene from both sides, in case you were wondering).  But my parents have been staying with us since just under a week before the baby was born, and my mother has spent the vast majority of that time (three weeks or so) asking how she can help me.  She has quietly done most of the laundry and almost all of the dishes; she has showered my girls when I’ve asked her to; she has bathed my sick and grouchy son when I’ve needed her to; and she has fed and burped and changed the baby when I’ve needed her to.  She has encouraged me to run errands by myself, she has picked up the kindergarteners from school, and she has run errands for me whenever I have asked.  She is unfailingly patient with my children and incredibly good at working with my two-year-old.  She made sure my hubby and I had a night out together after the baby was born.  I came home from an exceedingly rare opportunity to watch my oldest during her dance class to find my son bathed and my mother cleaning my bathroom counter.  She has set her own alarm so that she can wake up my girlies in time for school and get them started getting dressed, and she has done ALL of this three months shy of her 70th birthday.  And so I sit here, tears running down my cheeks, not CARING that we do things differently, because this incredible woman has done nothing but serve me for close to a month.

My parents leave tomorrow.  And I will be crying then, too.  Because even at 35 years old, sometimes you just really want your mom.