My mom was quite happy with the mom's day present my dad and I gave her, which was to clean the kitchen, dining room and family room areas for her. She was so giddy about it (despite it being her idea -- we tend toward the casual "so what would you like for a 'present'?" attitude towards most holidays 'round here), it made me properly guilty that we don't do that sort of thing more often. Mom often ends up doing most of the housework because she's the one who cares the most about it. She does, however, have a life as well, and so some things don't get done as often as they should. I ought to pull a bigger share of my non-rent.

because Mom is Cool. Despite having some typical Mom traits such as continuing to give unsolicited advice on what I should wear and how to do my hair, she is also the person who taught me how to read by reading to me all the time, starting before I could even talk; a repository of family stories which interwove themselves with my childhood; a good cook even though she does insist on cooking meat until it is no longer pink anywhere just in case of evil germs; a person of high ethical and moral standards, despite a bit of generation-gapping; a person who stayed home raising us kids, and was always there whenever we needed her, because we were the most important people to her in the whole world; a person who, thanks to her meeting and marrying my dad, enabled my brother and I to exist.

Here is a small example of how cool my dad is, by the way. We girls went shopping in the afternoon, leaving Dad watching the Laker game. After the game was over, Dad went over to Grandma's (Mom's mom), as previously arranged, and programmed her speed-dial numbers into her new telephone, and he also helped with miscellaneous other household tasks, as he often does. By the time we stopped by there on our way home, to give her happy-mom-day hugs and kisses, he was gone, but Grandma told us to give him big thank-you hugs when we got home.

also my "little" brother was so thoughtful as to make a happy-mom-day phone call, which rounded out mom's day quite nicely.

my family is the BEST, MAAAAN.

copyright 2003 carrie lynn king.