Happy Mother’s Day!

Golly.  I look at that picture and how put-together we all appear and it makes me want to simultaneously laugh and cry.

It makes me laugh because of how uncharacteristically serene we all seem!  Never, ever do I get all dolled up and sit sedately in an arm chair in the middle of a park.  Nor do my offspring generally spend their time so calmly and lovingly hanging out with each other!  Usually, that kind of proximity lends itself to poking, taunting, and all sorts of tomfoolery.

And it makes me want to cry a little, too.  Never again will they be this “little!”  Never again will they need me in just the way they do right now.  No, they’ll only keep getting bigger and older, moving more and more away from me and into themselves.

I am just so in awe of each one of them!  They each have their own unique gifts to offer the world.  And every time they do something that I think is the tip-top, most awesome thing ever?  That thing that I think they’ll never be able to top?  Well, then they just go ahead and blow me away again and again.  I can’t wait to see where life leads them, where God will take them on their individual journeys.

You know, it’s hard sometimes to reconcile these veritable giants I see in front of me with the babies I held in my arms.  And I know, I know!  All of you women who are farther along the motherhood journey than I am — I hear you!  I hear you tell me not to blink…to “just wait”…to enjoy it all before it slips away.

And I try!  Really and truly I do.  If I could, I would put toothpicks in my eyes to keep from blinking and bricks on their heads to keep them from growing.

But, I don’t think that would work, do you?  Yeah, I didn’t think so.

But today, no matter how near or far, little or big, young or old your babies are.  No matter whether they reside here on Earth or in heaven with their Maker.

From me to you,

from my family to yours,

from my mother heart to yours,

from my house of crazy to yours,

Happy Mother’s Day.