Happy Mother's Day!

I don't think my mother is aware of my blog (considering it's barely a week old, I'm doubting it!) but regardless, Happy Mother's Day to my amazing mother! My mother is pretty special and I don't know how to adequately express that.

She's a high school librarian, which most definitely contributes to my love of reading. Every Saturday, when I was younger, we'd go to the library and pick out books. Every summer, we took part in the summer reading projects at the library. Growing up, my sister, brother and I each had our own author...I had Beatrix Potter, my sister had Tasha Tudor and my brother had Tomie dePaola. Each Christmas, birthday, Easter, etc, we would get a book by "our" author. I now have the entire collection of Peter Rabbit and friends stories. Since I exhausted the collection several years back, my mother will now buy other Peter Rabbit things. Sometimes she finds Peter Rabbit cookbooks, or teacups or sticker books. Along the same lines, each Christmas we'd get (and still get) a Christmas story. I now have 28 Christmas stories of all sorts. I plan to do the same thing for my children. They will also someday get my Peter Rabbit stories and Christmas stories.

My mother is terrified of thunder and lightening. She had a scary experience with it when she was young. When we were children, during a storm, we would each go into our room and get a stack of books. We'd then go downstairs and sit on the floor in the hallway (where there were no windows), and read books until the storm ended. She would also unplug everything...lamps, phones, tv/vcr, everything....

My mother's best friend lives in upstate NY and is a very accomplished equestrian. I began riding when I was 9, and every summer, we'd go to Donna's and spend a week there and I'd ride every day, all day. I was in Heaven. Recently, my mother has begun to take riding lessons at a stable near my parents house. Every Monday night, she calls me to tell me about her lesson that evening. I love hearing about what she is learning and it brings back all sorts of memories.

Sometimes I really hate being so far from home. I was fortunate in that when growing up, all four of my grandparents lived ten minutes from my house and we saw them all the time. It makes me sad that my children won't be that close to theirs. We won't be able to go over for Sunday dinners or stop by on the way home from church. I want my babies to know how amazing their grandmother is...but I think they will still know....

Happy Mothers Day to mine and all the other mummies out there!