The pace of my day is starting a little sooner than I had intended. It’s four o’clock in the morning, and I can’t sleep, so I decide to put a pot roast in the slow cooker. A note from my son falls out of the cookbook I pulled from a shelf. "Dear Mom, I love you. You are the best mother ever. Thank you for staying home and taking care of me all these years." I was smart enough to pencil "age eight" on the back of the paper. I suppose I tucked it in my cookbook, knowing I would see it as I opened the book to plan and prepare meals for this family of mine. But it had been a while since I’d used this particular cookbook, and finding the note felt like opening a Christmas present. I want to run upstairs to my son’s bedroom and cover his 13-year-old face with kisses, a gesture that would certainly get the response, "Gross, Mom." So I decide to hold off, at least until he comes down for breakfast in two hours. It’s little moments like these that make me proud that I’m a mother. Proud of the decisions I’ve made to make this family my treasure. "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also," Jesus said. We make our children our treasures when we listen to their stories, bandage their wounds, dispense medicine in the middle of the night, put endless miles on our cars to and from activities, instruct, discipline, cry with, cheer on, pray for, understand, engage in conversation, cook and clean for (teach them to cook and clean for themselves), and then point them toward their future. I did this as a stay-home mom for years and continue to do so as a mom who now works fulltime away from home. The thing about motherhood, though, is that not every day is a warm fuzzy photo opportunity or acknowledgment for a job well done. You can bet I’ve had days, just like you, when I’ve thought, "What the heck was I thinking?" I’m reminded of a quote by Dr. James Dobson, a Christian psychologist, who said: "Raising children is not unlike a long-distance race in which the contestants must learn to pace themselves. That is the secret to winning." We still have a few years in our parenting race, a few more years with these treasures under the same roof. I slip my son’s note to me back between the pages. I’ll visit it again someday as I’m trying to decide between making Sunday Dinner Pot Roast or Cornbread Dressing or maybe just when I need to revisit a "thank you" for investing my heart.
Write to Taprina Milburn in care of King Features Weekly Service, P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475.
(c) 2008 King Features Synd., Inc.
