Awesome mom-some

Last year, I realized something kind of sad. The day that a woman gives birth, people say congratulations to her and say good job with labor and all that. But every year after that on that day, it's all about the baby. "Happy birthday!" they say. "Way to . . . be alive."

Now, I imagine that being born isn't the most pleasant experience (luckily, we all forget it), but shouldn't we still be congratulating the mom?

Normally, I would say the answer is no. Joseph's first birthday is going to be all about him, not about me.

But still, having been through childbirth now, I feel like I ought to thank my mom this year. Way to give birth to me! Way to deal with 12 extra days with me in the womb and then survive mastitis and blowouts and clinginess and whininess in the subsequent months. I appreciate you keeping me alive.

If that was all she did, my mom would be a pretty amazing person. But there's even more. (And I'm even going to leave out the most mushy and awesome and amazing stuff to leave you all in suspense.)

In no particular order, here are 23 reasons to celebrate my mom today:

1. She let us ride sleeping bags and pillows down the stairs.

2. She listened to the popular music more than we did in high school. I remember one time when I was riding the bus down to Allstate Choir that I decided to pull out "Mom's Mix 1" to listen to. My friend Brycen was intrigued and asked to listen. Imagine his surprise when artists such as Maroon 5 and Goo Goo Dolls came up. He wondered if the CD had been mislabeled and then began to joke about going to Green Day concerts with my mom. You have to be a pretty cool mom for that to happen.

3. In fact, she's always been cool when it came to music. As a teenager, she liked to jam to Sesame Street music. Even when members of the ward came over.

4. She taught math and English in junior high for a few years. That's cool on its own, but since she kept a lot of her old papers, we got to see historic documents like papers with fragrant purple ink. I don't think I would know what a mimeograph was otherwise.

5. She has read A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. That impressed my dad so much that he wanted to marry her.

6. Speaking of their courtship, from first real conversation to engagement was 18 days. Talk about love at first sight.

I don't think my grandpa even knew who my dad was until they were engaged.

7. She has always been good at throwing creative parties. In particular, I remember one party where we watched Ever After and then she would pause the movie for us to do an activity related to the movie. Like when Danielle was pretending to be royal, we all pretended to be royal by balancing books on our head and walking around. Then there was the holiday birthday party where we went through basically all the major holidays in one party (a mini easter egg hunt, going to the neighbors for a little bit of trick-or-treating, decorating gingerbread houses, etc.) And this was before Pinterest even existed.

8. She sewed many of our Halloween costumes. I liked the eagle costume so much, she made me another one when I outgrew the first.

9. And speaking of sewing,
She did this:

plus she made one for my best friend Rebecca in 1st grade and we wore our sunflower dresses every Thursday.

10. One year she had a really good peach harvest so she made a different peach pie recipe every day for like a week! Tragically, I didn't like peaches back then (you pick up enough rotting ones as a child, you get a little scarred) so I didn't appreciate it.

11. She's not afraid of snakes. One time, we were out on a walk near the river on a Sunday afternoon. Some of our neighbors with kids Spencer's age were on the same trail. When they saw a snake, my mom picked it up and showed it to all the boys. I think she won some little boy points that day.

12. Also, iguanas.

13. Strange as it sounds, sometimes waiting for the bus before the sun came up in the dead of winter in Cache Valley could be a little cold. And I guess my mom thought we had enough character without freezing to death, so when it was like 3 degrees (maybe warmer), she would drive down to the bus stop and let us hang out in the minivan until the bus came. And this included everyone, even the scary high school boys. The only downside was that they knew which car belonged to our family, which stopped being cool when I was about 12.

This one. That's why I'm driving it to heaven. (Oh, and my dad wants everyone to know that the decals did not cost extra.)

14. Speaking of driving, she and my dad were good at taking us places. Do you remember my chapter called "The Drive" in Hello, Kristie where all the kids threw up? That's there because I thought that that was a normal occurrence in the car. And even with that to look forward to, she didn't stop taking us on trips.

15. She looks good in anything. Even a 70s prom dress that she always wore as a pioneer costume.

16. She was never the first to pick us up from parties. I think this was a deliberate attempt to make us cooler.

17. She managed to keep not only my dad and six kids alive (as well as cousins, foreign exchange students, and friends who lived with us), but also a garden, orchard, some roses (usually), and our yard. I have yet to develop this ability, considering how much I struggle keeping any flowers from Kevin alive.

18. One time for an elementary school carnival she dressed up as Oreo the panda bear, our school mascot. That is the one and only time that I haven't been afraid of a person in costume.

19. She once took a career test and it told her she should be a clown. Considering how organized, detail-oriented, and analytical she was, it seems like the test was crazy. But once you've seen her as a Primary chorister, it almost seems like the test was spot-on. (Unfortunately, I was too embarrassed to appreciate it when I was in Primary.)

20. She is kind and friendly to everybody, even the ones who call her Barb.

21. She has green eyes. And she is left-handed.

22. She always appreciated our performances and praised our efforts. I remember one time shortly after I started playing the violin (a short-lived stint) that I decided to learn "Somewhere Out There" from An American Tail one afternoon. Then I decided that I could sing the alto part while playing the soprano part on the piano. So kind of the worst sounding thing ever. But she listened to my performance and just said tactfully at the end, "I think you should try just singing the melody." (though she probably just wanted me to be silent as death)

23. She has taught me joy. Looking at my blog and especially at this list, you might think I had the perfect childhood. I'd say it was ideal in many ways, but definitely not perfect. We fought. Tempers were lost. Feelings were hurt. We dealt with real struggles, just like any family.
But . . . I am able to look back at childhood with joy, and a lot of that is thanks to my mom. She is a happy, optimistic person who found joy in the gospel, marriage, work, music, reading, planning, and especially motherhood. Because of her example, I have always been able to look forward happily to motherhood instead of dreading the drudgery.

So, hooray for my mom! Thanks again for having me 23 years ago!