Mom

This has been a trying week on several levels, and?I'm sure a lot of lessons will present themselves as I look back on it.? But even if I learned nothing else, I learned that? - really, deep inside, nomatter what - I am a mom.? I really am truly a mom.? I am Brandon's mom, and Sarah's mom, and Bethy's mom.? Regardless of anything else that's going on, nomatter how bleak life may seem, nomatter how great it may be - I am their mom.

And I'm a good mom.? Why?? Because I love my kids.? Man, do I love those guys.? I'd go down into the pits of hell and stitch the devil's forked tongue together if it meant keeping my kids safe.? I'm braver because I'm their mom.? I'm more aware, observant.? I have strength in my motherhood that I'd have never known otherwise.? I'm passionate about my kids.? Nomatter how frustrated I am with Brandon, nothing in this world could make me stop loving him.? And as aggravated as I get with Sarah and her being bossy, it doesn't matter.? At the end of the day, I'm lost without my kids being in their beds, sleeping with their little cheeks all rosy and sweaty-sweet.? And I'm not completely sure that anything in this whole wide world can top the pride and unutterable joy and completeness I feel when Bethy looks up at me with that trusting, infatuated-with-Mama look after a good nursing.

And it doesn't mean a hill o' beans that I write or design websites or graphics or that I'm funny sometimes or that I sing or anything else under God's blue sky.?

It means everything that I'm somebody's mom.