I thought I would introduce you to my mom today.   Her name is Daphne and she is rad.  I met her when she was 34 years old… and I was zero… because I was born.  She had a houseful of kids already but she was still excited about me!  I liked her immediately because she rocked me to sleep, changed me, and I can tell that she fed me a lot because I was chunky!

Our friendship progressed through the years.  She still fed and clothed me, but the diaper thing eventually went away.  For lack of a better term, my mom was the original hipster.  She sewed all our clothes (everything from undies to prom dresses), made tons of loaves of whole wheat bread every week (milling the wheat herself) to keep her brood in PB&js, and kept the cookie jar full (seriously, we ALWAYS had cookies).  As kids we would complain about our breakfasts.  What horrible things would she feed us?  Oh… eggs, bacon, pancakes, waffles, oatmeal, cocoa, whole-wheat toast with loganberry jam… that she of course canned from berries grown in our backyard… gross right?  We just wanted a bowl of Lucky Charms, ungrateful little miscreants that we were.  I didn’t know you could buy maple syrup or cinnamon rolls at the store.  

Don’t get me started on our Twinkie-less lunches or our homemade pizza dinners… made from, yep you guessed it… tomato sauce that she canned from tomatoes we grew in our backyard.  

So with all this baking and sewing and cleaning (can you imagine the laundry 8 people produce?), she probably didn’t do much else, right?  Wrong!  She was constantly serving others through church or as the PTA president and would you believe she taught piano lessons every day?!  I think her oven had a constant rotation of brownies going through it for bake sales.  She sacrificed so much for us kids; it boggles my mind.  She is the kind of mom that could totally rub it in your face that she is so amazing, but she doesn’t because on top of her unbelievable awesomeness she is the most loving & humble, down-to-earth person ever.  When she talks to someone for 5 minutes, the next time she sees them she gives them a ginormous hug like they were her best friend.  She’s just like that.   I’m so lucky to call her Mom and to have her just 20 minutes away to bug her whenever I want to.  Hopefully I can be half the mother she is… maybe that’s why I had 3 kids!  ha.  

This post is the first part of a little Mother’s Day series.  Tomorrow, for the second maternally-minded post, we’ll hear from my mom and maybe see a couple of embarrassing pictures.  Mother’s Day we’ll finish with the third generation with a post by my daughter Bailey.  Hope you enjoy.