Reflections for Mother's Day

I have found many quotations on motherhood over the past nine years, but, this is by far my favorite because it really does sum it all up in a sweet way.
Motherhood is like wearing your heart on the outside of your body.

It truly is. From the moment I gave birth to my first child, my life changed forever! It was like I was born and felt so alive for the first time. Motherhood is a non-stop education where you cannot call in sick, the pay is in hugs and kisses and and you have the cutest and sometimes the most demanding bosses in the world!

Motherhood is holding your breath while your eight year old steps up to the plate the very next game after he got hit with a pitch in the face in baseball, but, smiling encouragingly when he catches a glimpse of you. It is showing how much you care by being at every game, play, recital and birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese with anticipation and happiness while watching the real joy through the eyes of your children!

It is assuring your children that everything is okay while you are petrified because they are about to have surgery or have recently been diagnosed with asthma. It is making chocolate milk for boo-boos received and kissing and cuddling until all is better.

For me, motherhood also has another aspect since we teach our children at home. It is the sheer delight in being able to see the all of the "firsts" when they occur. I can honestly say that some of my fondest mothering moments have included seeing the look on my sons faces when they read independently for the first time! It is priceless and I could not be prouder! As Henry Ward Beecher said "The mother's heart is the child's school-room."
As the Jewish Proverb says "God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers."
No two hearts in the world ever grew together like the hearts of a Mother and a Son: Jesus and Mary. "Where your treasure-house is, there your heart is, too" [Matt. 6: 21]. His treasure was His Mother, her Treasure was her Son. These two hearts, the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, kept their treasures in one another and in the sovereign will of the Father. In a certain sense, there were not two hearts but one, so deep was the love for each, so at one were their wills, so united were their minds. (taken from Archbishop Fulton Sheen Mary, Motherhood and the Home) Motherhood is modeling the kind of grace filled and compassionate woman you want your children to honor. It's about showing your children that through God all things are possible and that He knew them WAY before they were conceived. It is modeling the importance of people over things and the reasoning behind this.

Most of all it is about being there...in the moment with your children. I have found that the older people that I passed ten years ago when I was pregnant my first time that would stop and give me such a sweet knowing smile and tell me to cherish this time because it is fleeting were exactly right! It goes by much too quickly and you cannot get time back. It is enjoying all of the sweet simple things like collecting rocks while taking walks through the woods, picnics at the lake, bike rides, making snow angels and Christmas cookies and sipping hot cocoa. That is why it is so important to realize that the little things are the most important things in life.