Happy birthday, Mom!

On this day, 54 years ago, the woman who would become my mother was born.

Before she was my mama, she was a quiet girl who loved animals, hated math, grew up playing on the dunes along the beach in Florida before condos and high-rise hotels took over, lived on Okinawa and in New York, had a Siamese cat named Bumbo, rode her bicycle all over the place, graduated from college with a degree in psychology, and worked in a hospital emergency room.

In honor of your birthday, the following is a list of my favorite memories, things you taught me, and great things about you.

1) You carried Shelby and me for a total of 18 months, suffered months of morning, noon, and night sickness, in great pain brought us into the world, and endured sleep deprivation, colic, crying, dirty diapers, and the general chaos and messiness that babies and toddlers bring to life. When that phase ended, you drove us to 4-H meetings, music lessons, horse shows, roller skating nights, and birthday and slumber parties, dealt with injuries, illnesses, hurt feelings, and sibling arguments, and doled out attitude adjustments, discipline, and guidance.

The mere thought of those things is enough for the average person to run away in panic. But, you embraced the role of motherhood and loved us like no other. Your babies are 28 and 25 now, but we will never outgrow our need for you.

2) Your decision to stay home with us. You sacrificed a career outside the home and time that could have been spent doing other things to be with us 24/7. Thank you.

3) You taught us to have compassion for the hurting, weak, and those who cannot speak for themselves.

4) Your relationship with Grandma. As a kid, I would sit there and watch y'all laugh until you cried and could no longer speak, thinking to myself, "What was so funny?" 

Now that I'm grown, I get it. Mothers, daughters, and grandmothers don't need a reason to laugh. Anything and everything can make us laugh until tears are streaming down our faces; while Dad and Grandpa just sit there and shake their heads in disbelief at our behavior.

5) Your decision to home school. Fifteen years of schedules, textbooks, science projects, spelling tests, and school supplies made up those days; the last of which was seven years ago. We had our moments, of course, but the vast majority of memories from my school years are of fun, laughter, and the special excitement that comes from learning new things.

6) You suffered through math with me. Every lesson usually ended with me in tears, wailing, "Why am I so stupid?" You would then calmly inform me that you had struggled with math since the first grade, and I now bore the burden of that struggle thanks to genetics. You would regale me with your math horror stories until tears of frustration turned into laughter. 

7) You let us complete science experiments in the kitchen.

I built a volcano and Shelby painted animal skulls. Talk about a cool mom!

8) Your love of animals. Whether it was a stray puppy or an injured baby bird, you always let me and Shelby nurse it back to health, or at least make an attempt.

9) You encouraged us to explore, create, be curious, and view the world as our lifelong classroom.

10) You let the house be lived in. As long as we put everything back in its original place when we were finished, you didn't mind. From pushing all the living room furniture aside in order to run from one end of the house to the other while sliding in our socks; to baby dolls, Barbies, and stuffed animals strewn everywhere in our imaginary vet's office and hospital; to glue, glitter, Play-Doh, and paint on the table from our many craft projects; we were allowed to play and be children.

11) I remember what fun it was to take my toy shopping cart to the kitchen pantry to grocery shop. You could have kept the pantry door shut and not dealt with the aftermath of putting away all the canned goods and jars of peanut butter I took off the shelves, but you didn't.

Those early years must have made an impact; I still love to go grocery shopping with my itemized, detailed list. :)

12) Your ability to cook. Seriously, nobody can cook as well as you; not even those five-star restaurant, Food Network chefs. They might think they are the best cooks in the world, but that's only because they haven't met you.

13) Thanks to you taking us to visit nursing homes when we were little kids, we learned to hold strangers' hands in the hallways and listen to people's oftentimes incoherent conversations. Nursing homes can be unnerving places to those unaccustomed to the sights, sounds, and smells. You took us young enough that we never knew to be afraid. Instead, I remember many inspiring, kind, funny people. I learned that every person has a story.

14) Thanks for encouraging me to take violin lessons and for occasionally; okay, probably more than  occasionally; pushing me to practice when I had a bad attitude. Since that first lesson when I was nine years old, music has become a second language. I'm no Mozart or Beethoven, but I'm grateful I can pull my violin out of its case or sit down at the piano and play. 

15)  Your love of the beach and all things coastal was passed on to me; although I took it a step further and actually swim in the ocean. We have saltwater in our veins.

16) Your sense of fun. Whether it is going to the movies, window shopping at the mall, wandering around a farmers' market, or playing a board game, you are always ready to laugh and have fun.

17) You support my dreams, plans, and crazy ideas that usually involve international travel, the wilderness, or some other type of potentially dangerous activity. You smile and say, "I'm not going to do it, but you go ahead and have fun!" You then film the spectacle; as evidenced by the sea kayaking adventure of 2011 when you stood on the shore laughing as Shelby, Jennalyn, and I attempted to get in the kayak. :)



18) Your inability to distinguish which side won the Civil War.

19) I love the fact that you are the person who taught me to read. Every time I walk into a library with a long list of books to check out, give yourself credit for a job well done.

20) I will never understand how you can believe To Kill a Mockingbird has no plot, nor do I understand your love for the music of Michael Bolton. ;) However, we agree that bookstores and libraries are some of the best places on earth, shrimp and grits is a food group unto itself, and watching episodes of Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons is the surest way to cry and use an entire box of Kleenex.

I hope you have a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious birthday!!! :)