My Mom

I've seen lots of cute little plaques and decorations with the words "The only thing better than having you as my mom is my children having you as their grandma." I love it and think it is such a sweet sentiment. I thought about getting something along those lines for my mom but the more I thought about it, the more I felt like it wasn't exactly true for me. I love my mom as Carter and Elise's Oma and she is a wonderful Oma. I couldn't imagine any way she could be a better Oma. But I don't think there's anything better than having her as my mom. I don't think I can adequately describe how I feel exactly. It's just that I loved her as my mom and I think I will always love her most as my mom and loving her as the Oma to my children is just wrapped up in how much I love her as my mom. She's the first person I want to share a funny story with. She's the one I know will always care about what I'm thinking or what I have to say. She's the one I know will support any and every decision I make, even when I change my mind back and forth. She's the one who ran along the sidelines yelling at a boy who kept illegally slide tackling me from behind during a soccer game. She's the one who always yelled the loudest for me in races. The way the inflection in her voice changed as she cheered for me at the end of the race told me whether someone was coming up behind me or not. She always has and always will have my back and I know that. While her role as an Oma is wonderful and important, I don't think it is necessarily more special than how I feel about her as my mom. As wonderful of an Oma as she is, she's just as wonderful as a mom.

My dad told me after we visited he was cleaning the little handprints off the bottom of the mirror in their bedroom and my mom told him, "Don't you dare clean my grandkids' handprints off that!" Then when we came to visit the next time, as I walked up to the front door I noticed a chalk handprint one of the kids had made on the front of the house when we had played with chalk during our last visit. It was very carefully left right where it was as a reminder of her grandchildren and it warmed my heart. How she is as a grandparent is very different than how she was as a parent as it very well should be. You can't indulge your children like you can your grandchildren or they will grow up to be very spoiled. But I think grandparents play such an important role in a child's life because they are those special people who not only love you no matter what (just like your parents) but also let you do pretty much anything. I've had this post running around in my head for a while but I knew I couldn't really get my thoughts out into words the way I wanted. I just figured it was worth at least trying.   

Carter's handprint that has still not been washed away.