Mother's Day

Every Mother's Day, I sit and write a letter/prayers for my kids. I look forward to it and dread it all at the same time. I look forward to it, because well, I don't really journal for my kids. I think it's a great idea, but the reality is I barely have time to write things on my hand so I remember a dentist appointment...what makes me think I'll have time to write down the daily doings of life!? I refuse to try this, for I am sure I will quit and some point and then feel like a failure, never to take it up again.* (I do kind of consider this blog a journal...kind of). I do have a "words to remember" book, I write down their funny sayings in, but it is not a record of who they are, how they are growing, and the prayers and dreams I have for them. And so I look forward to this day, where I reflect on my year of mothering my kids...of all they are and all I pray for them to be.
I also dread this time. How do you trap a year into a few hours of writing? (Ahem...maybe this is why some mother's keep a regular journal and write daily. Please note *) And how do you fit little personalities onto a page? How do you confine prayers so heartfelt and full, to sentences. How can you possibly write down your love for a child? Who knows? But still I try.
Every year on Mother's day, I sit with my pen and write in my sloppy handwriting (I think there is something about seeing handwriting, no matter how sloppy and knowing it was written for you). I write to each of the kids, explaining how they've grown, who they are becoming in my eyes, and write down the prayers I pray for them as they grow. I write to them as a whole, of who they are to each other and the prayers I have for their bonds to grow stronger and be the support they need for each other in this crazy world. I try my best to put on the page the love and joy each of them bring to my life.
And then, without re-reading it...I close the book and pray that one day they will read this and KNOW beyond a doubt, that I love them dearly and God loves them more than that!
I still haven't decided when I will give them this book. Maybe I won't. Maybe they can just have it when I go meet Jesus. Of course, I feel a little guilty that there are three of them and one book...someone is gonna have a lot of copying to do. But I'll be with Jesus at that point and won't really care.
No matter what the book does for them, it has helped me to recognize the great love I have for these kids, the great hopes and dreams I pray come true for them, the amazing personalities and quirks God has placed in them, the incredible joy they provide, just in being a part of our family, and how terribly I will miss them when they grow up and take on the adventure in the great big world.
I am thankful to this book, because, let's face it ladies...Mother's day isn't always daisies and sunshine...many times, it's us packing a picnic for the family and doing the laundry after a day at the park, cleaning up the glitter glue "present" they made that fell onto the van floor, finding a place for the homemade cards to be proudly displayed, breaking up arguments about who gets to help unwrap the present and generally being a mom. (Sidenote: my husband gave me some nice time off and a Starbucks card, he tried his best and I am quite thrilled!) But sometimes, Mother's Day is you have to be the mommiest you ever were. And at the end of a day like that, this little book helps me to remember, just why I do it. For those little people who make my life so full!