The greatest holiday of the year

No, it's not Saint Patrick's Day. (Well, actually it is.) But, more importantly, it is my fabulous mother's sixtieth birthday.



Wasn't she a cute baby? She claims that this is her, on the horse, but it sure doesn't look like it to me. (I just can't get past the blond hair.) What a fairy tale life she must have had to get a pony to ride for her birthday.



Things weren't all fairly tale as she lost her father when she was just 12. Things got very hard. She worked hard as the oldest child and took care of her mother and sister.



This is a picture of her when she worked at The Hecht Company. This is where she met my Dad.



And, lucky me, they decided to get married. (Is my father rockin' it in that tux or what?)



It wasn't long before I made her a mother. (I think this is me.)



Eighteen months later, Stephanie came along. After having Luke and Grant just 20 months apart I have FAR more appreciation of the chaotic time this must have been in her life. Plus, Steph started becoming frustrated with me when she was just a baby and I ripped a bottle out of her mouth. There were MANY fights after that that I'm sure drove my mother crazy, the poor soul. Somehow, she still seems to be enjoying us, doesn't she?



I have to throw this one in because it is one of my favorite pictures of us. (I think she looks cool and I'm so stinkin' cute that I just want to kiss all over myself.)


Four years later, Kimmy came along and made the family complete.


My mom stayed home with us even though there were times at the end of the month when all the money was gone. She and my dad had to go grocery shopping at the drug store because they had a credit card there. They really sacrificed for us and moved us from Virginia to Maryland to buy an adorable house for us to grow up in. My mother took us on outings, we spent summers taking swimming lessons and she made awesome cakes for our birthdays. We went on great vacations and spent lots of time at the beach.

She is such a fun and caring friend. She serves others and nursed one of her best friends through years of cancer. She cared for her mother when she became ill. She went back to work when we were all in school and now basically runs an emergency room.

She has always supported me. I was on a dance team in high school and she came to every competition. We traveled to the National competition in Florida and she drove some of the girls (all the way from Maryland) in a van even though her own daughter got to fly. She even made costumes for us. She and my father sent me to Europe for an exchange in high school. She made a homecoming dress for me. She didn't even kill me when I hated the prom dress that she had custom made for me (to my specifications) and then wore a dress that I borrowed from a friend. When I gave her 5 1/2 weeks notice that I was getting married, she helped me plan my wedding even though she was working and going on a cruise to celebrate her own anniversary.

Here she is meeting her first grand baby, Jackson.


It was after this moment that I began to realize just how much my mother did for my sisters and I and how much she loves us. She is the one that I called at 3 am when baby Jackson fell off the couch. Even though I was frantic she assured me that he would be OK (and that Child Protective Services would not take him from me). She came over after work and rocked Jackson for hours or called every morning when I was having such bad post-pardom anxiety and depression that I couldn't sleep for weeks. "How did he do last night?" was always the question.

And, still, she takes care of me. She called tonight to let me know that when she was getting her taxes done today she asked the preparer a question that I just happened to mention to her a couple of weeks ago.

I loved living just five minutes from them. I never felt like it was an imposition to ask her to babysit. She loves her grand kids. And they love her. Jackson tells just about everyone about his Grandma and how she makes the best cookies on the planet. We saw a picture of a cookie that looked like the ones that she makes on a poster at the grocery store. He was shocked that a store in Michigan had a picture of his Grandma's famous cookies. A couple of days ago I went into Jackson's room and discovered that he had done a little bit of decorating.


He could have put anything on his wall. However, the picture he chose to post wasn't of Spiderman, his friends, his brothers or even his beloved Dad. This is the lone picture that he chose to decorate his wall:




Happy birthday, Mom. Thank you for training me and teaching me. Thank you for choosing life and making me the woman that I am today. I hope I get to have you around for another 60 years. I love you!

(Oh, yeah, she's a great Facebook farmer, too!)