Mother of the Year - 2008

This is for all the mothers who didn’t win Mother of the Year in 2008.
All the runners-up and all the wannabes.  The mothers too tired to enter or too busy to care.

What makes a good mother anyway? Is it patience? Compassion?  Broad hips? The ability to
nurse a baby, cook dinner, and iron a shirt all at the same time? Or is it heart?
Is it the ache you feel when you watch your son or daughter disappear down the street,
walking to school alone for the very first time? The jolt that takes you from sleep to dread,
from bed to crib at 2 a.m. to put your hand on the back of a sleeping baby?

The need to flee from wherever you are and hug your child when you hear
news of a school shooting, a fire, a car accident, a baby dying?

I think so.

So this is for all the mothers who sat down with their children and
explained all about making babies, and about bad people, and war.
And for all the mothers who wanted to but just couldn't.

For all the mothers who froze their buns off on metal bleachers at soccer games Friday
night instead of watching from cars, so that when their child asks, "Did you see my goal?"
they could say, "Of course! I wouldn't have missed it for the world." and mean it.

This is for all the mothers who have sat up all night with sick toddlers in their
arms, wiping up throw-up saying, "It's OK honey, Mommy's here."
This is for all the mothers who show up at work with spit-up on their shoulder
and juice stains on their clothes and diapers in their purse.

This is for reading "Guess How Much I Love You" twice a night for a year.
And then reading it again. "Just one more time."

This is for all the mothers who mess up.  Who yell at their kids in the
grocery store and swat them in despair and stomp their feet like a tired
2-year-old who wants ice cream before dinner.

This is for all the mothers who taught their kids to tie their shoelaces
before they started school. And for all the mothers who opted for  
Velcro instead.

For all the mothers who bite their lips – sometimes until they bleed – when
their 15-year-olds dye their hair green.

Who lock themselves in the bathroom when babies keep crying and won't stop.

This is for all the mothers who teach their sons to cook and their
daughters to sink a jump shot.

This is for all mothers whose heads turn automatically when a little
voice calls "Mom?" in a crowd, even though they know their own offspring are
at home.

This is for all the mothers who sent their sons  to school with
stomachaches, assuring them they'd be just FINE once they got there,
only to get calls from the school nurse an hour later asking them to
please pick them up. Right away.

This is for mothers whose children have gone astray, who can't find the words
to reach them. For all the mothers who gave birth to babies they’ll never see.
And the mothers who took those babies and gave them homes.

This is for young mothers stumbling through diaper changes and nursing and sleep
deprivation. And mature mothers learning to let go. For working mothers
and stay-at-home mothers. Single mothers and married mothers. Mothers with
money, mothers without.

This is for you all.

So hang in there.

[babypooh]

Thank you for posting this; it's great! We're not perfect, but we act out of love and it is when you become a mother that you really know what unconditional love is. May God Bless all of us mommies :)