project.chameleon

Happy Mother's day to each and every mommy out there.

My mom is in Illinois visiting her mother for the week, so I'm left motherless on this day, and although I honestly don't pay much attention to this day on most years ... it leaves me a little sad. To me, everyday is Mother's Day. I spend each hour of each day doing things for my children and for the children I work with. I know that every choice I make and every word I speak affects them in some way, becomes a peice of them that will be carried with them forever, whether they realize it or not. It's important to me that my children feel loved, feel respected, and feel cared for. And I do everything in my power to make each day a good experience, a positive memory that will help shape them into the adults they will one day become.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how we, or at least I, don't really understand when we enter into parenthood exactly what it entails. I never thought about how I would lie in bed at night and wonder if I made the best choices that day, if I said the right things, gave enough hugs and kisses. I never realized that I would agonize over the times that I felt like I wasn't giving enough of myself, wasn't being the best mommy possible. I certainly never thought about the days when my boys will become teenagers and spend more time away from me than with me, spend more time with friends and school and whatnot, and slowly but surely become independent men that no longer want to share every moment of their lives with me.

The thought of them getting mixed up from bad influences drives me mad. When my sister was in high school and R and I were raising her, we watched so many frightening things happen. True, I wasn't exactly a saint when I was in high school, but then, I was young and never considered that my own parents were lying in bed at night worrying about me.

I suppose my greatest prayer, my most precious wish for today is that my children will always be able to be open with me, that they will not be drawn away from me and into a world that will lead them down the wrong path. I pray that they learn lessons from their choices, and are never dealt more pain than they can speedily recover from. I pray that they know great love in their lives, and don't whittle away what they have with irrational choices. I pray that as they grow they stand by their convictions. Things as little as Steven not wanting to eat at McDonalds for fear of losing more rain forest, and Daegan ripping the stolen hat out of the bullies hand to return it to the litte kid crying in the dirt. I pray that I am strong enough to see this through, and that no matter what, my love and devotion for them carries us through everything that is to come.

And last of all, I pray that wherever you are, whatever is going on in your life, you have a special mother, grandmother, aunt, sister, daughter, godmother, or friend that loves you, dotes on you, is always there for you, just as my own mother has been.