What I Know For Sure

With Mother's Day this weekend, I have been thinking a lot about motherhood.  Motherhood has been something that I have been passionate about even before I was a mother.  I remember when I was in second grade bringing home a book titled I Want to be a Homemaker.

That book spoke to me.  I think I was born with the knowledge embedded deep in my soul that being a mother was my calling in this life.  I knew that I needed to learn all I could about it and be the best mother I could be.  I never had high aspirations of having a career outside of the home (motherhood IS a career after all!) and so in college I graduated in Child Development and Family Science/Food and Nutrition.  My education served me well as a mother and homemaker.  But...there is nothing that can be taught on a campus or in books that can prepare you for the actuality of motherhood and for each individual child.  That all comes via experience.  However, I am deeply grateful that I was able to study and learn all I did and it helped me out immensely as a stay at home mom.  
 
I definitely had high aspirations of motherhood.  Then I had children.  

I wanted to be that kind of mother I watched from the sidelines, I wanted to be the perfect textbook mother, I wanted to be the Mother of the Year, I wanted to be the mother described from the pulpit on Mother's Day.  But giving birth somehow got in the way of that.  While in the trenches I was anything but the perfect textbook mother or the mother lauded from the pulpit.  I was just trying to figure out how to potty train without losing my mind, trying not to get buried and suffocated by the laundry avalanche, trying to keep meals on the table three, four, five, six times a day that had somewhat nutritional value for five growing boys, trying to deal with all the messes and the dirt.  So. much. dirt.  And basically do it all by myself. While Dave was in medical school and his internship and residency, I was all but a single mom.

It was all about daily survival keeping my brains intact.  I often wondered why it seemed so easy in the textbooks before I had children.   

When Dave was in medical school and I was basically a single mother at home with three little boys, I was fortunate enough to hear about an organization called American Mothers Inc. (AMI).   One of my best friends was a member and so I ended up joining as well.  That organization is what saved me during those tough years of medical school.  It gave me the support I needed as a mother. It also inspired me to want to be the kind of mother that those I met in that organization were.  Those women were the cream of the crop of motherhood.  It was one of those blessings that I will be forever grateful for.  It also gave me the avenue to pursue my passion for motherhood and to help other mothers also find that passion.  

I LOVE AMERICAN MOTHERS!!! 

You will too!

Go online and search in Google for your local chapter!  You will be glad you did! So will your sanity!!!