Mother's Day List

As Mother’s Day draws to a close, I decided to create a list of things that remind me of my Mom.  Sometimes, at family birthdays, we’ll make a list and “roast” the birthday person.  This list is not totally a roast, but a mélange of memories of my mother.  The older I get (and my mother gets), the longer the list seems to get.

1. She always recognized our individual talents and helped to nurture them – she must have spent countless hours driving us to art, music and swimming lessons.  The best thing was that she was horrible at art, couldn't carry a tune, and was afraid to swin.
2. She is a huge proponent of getting the best education possible.
3. She was a remarkable example of a woman running a business in a man’s world – back in the day, as they say, she had her own real estate office in Madison for 25 years.  When it came time for me to open my dental practice, I never thought it couldn’t be done.
4. She always let us lick the beater when she was baking.
5. The importance of family was made clear.  She says “No matter what else happens, your family will be there for you.”
6. A consummate entertainer – she makes guests welcome.  Years ago she had notecards to track what food she had served guests and whether or not they liked it. 
7. Amazing cook and even better baker.  She took cooking classes with Jacques Pepin before the Food Network was all the rage.  My love of food certainly comes from growing up cooking and baking with my mother and grandmother.  For holidays, we’ve now settled into a routine of me doing the cooking and she doing all the baking.
8. She was, and still is, consistently late – which taught me to be on time.
9. Correct grammar and writing are important to her.  She red-lined a lot of my high school English projects. And now, my staff laughs at how I immediately get a pen out to correct correspondence before it leaves the office.  (In fact, if my mother reads this blog, she’ll send me a note that I shouldn’t be using hyphens!).
10. The ever-present tissue. And if you sneeze without one, you are sure to hear: “God bless you, now where was your tissue?” 
11. “People will judge you by how you speak” was something I heard all through my youth (yet still I can’t use “bring” and “take” properly).
12. Financial responsibility –I still remember knowing, on the rare occasions that we would eat out, that we had a certain amount of money to spend on our meal.  If we chose to go above our limit, we would reimburse Mom and Dad when we got home.
13. Having a safe car is one of her pet peeves. Before the days of airbags, she would research what was the safest vehicle.  But somehow, I still remember my baby sister in a small bassinet in the back of the car, without any kind of a seatbelt!

I wonder, years from now, when I’m my mother’s age, what my children’s list will look like.  Why not make a list yourself, and share it with your mother – hopefully, you’ll both be amused. (Ugh – see, more hyphens…)