My mom and I have a unique relationship. I love her to death but she does drive me absolutely crazy at times. 🙂 For as long as I can remember, she has been my biggest cheerleader but she has also been the biggest magnifying glass for all of my faults. When I was growing up she made sure that I had the opportunity to participate in any and all activities from dance lessons with a former Rockette, Barbizon, Pop Warner cheerleading and she always told me that I could be whatever I wanted to be and never to allow anyone to tell me otherwise. I have held to that encouragement and I still believe that I can do and be anything that I want…move over Hillary and Barack. 😉

My mom gave me enough rope to hang myself on numerous occassions and she allowed me to live with the consequences of many of my not-so-right choices. She wouldn’t let my suffering last long as she would do something to bail me out and make things easier for me. This has been both good and bad for me as I have grown older. She would always chuckle about how she couldn’t wait for me to have a daughter so that she can see me being a mom. 😮

Wouldn’t you know that I have a daughter and not only does she look like me when I was little, she completely acts like me with some of her dad thrown in, thank God!!! There are many times I see you just laughing as you watch our interactions and then you always say, “she acts just like you”…some days that is good and most days it serves as a reminder that God is not through with me yet.

Mom, I am thankful for your encouragement and pushing to follow my dreams even though they weren’t your dreams for me, you allowed me to see where they would take me. You have dealt with the ups and downs and all the craziness that I have taken you through and for that I am grateful. You have been and continue to be strong even when you lost your son and you have helped me deal with the lost of my son. If I had to choose an area for us to be similar, I wouldn’t have chosen that but God did so we go forth carrying our crosses.

You have come to see the importance of my staying home with my kids even though you worked, you are embracing us homeschooling the kids even though you sent us to public schools, you see that even though I was pretty financially irresponsible (with your enabling) while growing up that I do quite well living off of 1 income.

There are some things that I would change in retrospect but many of them we have discussed. I am thankful that God chose you to be my Mommy, I love you!

This post was inspired by the July Group Writing Project hosted by MamaBlogga.