It's Mother's Day morning, and I have already been up and moving. My husband was kind enough to take me out for morning coffee in honor of Mother's Day. (LOL really it is something that he does every weekend, however I will let him count it towards Mother's Day) I have been on Facebook, and had the chance to send out my own Mother's Day wishes as well. 

My husband and my kids are so sweet, and easily excitable. This year they bought the portrait camera lens that I have been drooling over for several years. This is something that was not cheap and I never expected to receive as a gift, however they surprised me with it and showed me how much they love me and support my endeavors with my photography. My youngest also had a seperate gift for me, a poem that he wrote with his class regarding Mother's Day. It was titled a Mother's Beauty. It was sweet and sincere and I could ask for nothing more. I took my lens, placed it on my camera and immediately began snapping pictures just to see if the lens worked, and if it was all that I ever dreamed that it would be on my camera. 

However, I am constantly drawn back to a cute poem that my youngest brought home from school. It was a simple poem, and I am sure that every child took a similar poem home, but his has touched my heart. I cannot put a finger on why it has touched my heart as it has, but it has. I have read it 100 times since he gave it to me on Friday and I love it more and more every time I read it. Each of my children as they have gone thru school has brought home beautiful poems and gifts and they are all very near and dear to my heart, and I look at them every year. I think that my youngest and his poem touch me because I know this is the last 3rd grade Mother's Day poem that I am going to receive. I know he is going to continue to grow like his brother and sister, and eventually Mother's Day is going to become a "Happy Mother's Day" thrown over his shoulder as he heads out the door for another adventure in his young life.

Maybe this realization is what draws me back more and more to this poem. I have watched my daughter grow from the cute, smiling diaper wearing Halloween witch to a beautiful, full of drama 16 year old. I realize that in two years that she is going to be an adult, and out on her own in a world that is not as forgiving as I have been. I have watched my handsome, Bambi eyed, full of life, quad riding, Papa's boy of a son become a handsome, handful, and sometimes angry young man, and then there is my little Monkey who has a life that has yet to be determined. I am so proud of my three little beautiful/handsome children. My heart swells for each of them with their accomplishments and with each milestone that they accomplish, and then the realization happens that they are one step closer to being grown, and out on their own, out of my line of sight and protection. It is something that is hard to swallow, but at the same time makes me proud and swell with pride. 

I must admit the trials and the tribulations that it takes to get to this point is a struggle. The fights, the "I hate you's", the "I can't wait to be 18 to get away from you's". They are all hard on my heart. But the accomplishments they achieve, the "I Love you's", the "Thank you's" are priceless. They are as priceless as the poem I received from little Monkey on Friday. 

I must say this is what Mother's Day is about, and I would never trade it for the world.