Day of the Mommies

Before I get too far into this post, let me put up this disclaimer: there is not much in the way of pictures in the blog post. If you, like me, prefer to just look at pictures and skip all the yackety-smackety then you should just keep on truckin'. My feelings won't be hurt. I promise.

I debated whether to put up a post about Mother's Day. I had decided against it because it endangers my carefully crafted self-image. But my dad always tells me I should learn to move past my image and watch girly movies. But since I'm not going to watch girly movies I will settle for this instead.

End of disclaimer. You were warned.

Samantha made a small craft for her mother, who also happens to be my wife. It's crazy how that works. In the old days we would have cut out some colored paper and maybe used some crayons. But we are hip and with the times! Samantha decided instead to create a customized desktop background for her mommy's computer:



Now on to my own editorial.

I have been greatly blessed in my life when it comes to mommies.

My own mommy has taught me more lessons than I could possibly relay here. She taught me about unconditional love and compassion for others. She sparked my creativity and encouraged me in everything I did. She taught me a love for learning and reading and understanding. She taught me about sacrifice.

And most importantly of all... she made me Yorkshire Pudding.

It's hard for me to remain serious for more than a paragraph. I'm trying.

I've had the pleasure for the past decade (dang it's been a while since I moved out here) to live close to my mother-in-law. She taught me of the conditional love that only comes when I play tennis with her enough.

Dang. I didn't make it a paragraph that time. Let me try that again.

My favorite mother-in-law showed me a dedication to her family, church, and job that amazed me. She reinforced the lessons from my own mother about sacrifice, love, and commitment to your family. While many people have horror stories of their own mother-in-laws, I have one that treats me as well as if I were her own child. How lucky can one person be?

And most importantly of all... she makes me chicken-fried chicken. I'm sensing a theme here. Some of you will no doubt ask "what in the HECK is chicken-fried chicken?" Yeah, I'll save that for some other blog post.

And then we have Lennie, who is not my mommy. But she is Samantha's Mommy. I tried to interview Samantha about her mommy, but all she would say is "Crazy mommy!" And while there is a lot of truth there, let me paraphrase what I believe she was trying to say.

Any of you who know Lennie know what a kind, sweet individual she is. Even though she's only been a mommy for a little less than two years she makes a tremendous effort to be the best mommy she can be. She takes the time to give Samantha new experiences and helps her develop and grow. She shows the love and understanding to sometimes allow Samantha to fail on her own, rather than taking every burden from her. But she is always there when Samantha needs her.

I'm sure when Samantha is older she will come to appreciate that same unconditional love, compassion, sacrifice, dedication, and kindness shown to me and Lennie by our mommies.

Plus, Lennie makes Shepherd's Pie for us.

Truly, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.