Despite Being an Adult, I'm Still My Mother's Child

Kids have the most interesting conceptions about how the world works. To wit: tonight, my four-year-old niece kept retrieving books from the shelves, trying to find one that had my name in it. She had decided she wanted to read one of my old books. Anyway, once she found one, she said something about how my name was in the book because when her mom and I and our other siblings were little like her, we were Grandma's children.

"Wait," I said. "So we're not Grandma's children anymore?"

She gave me a funny look and said, "No, Katie, because you're BIG now."

I quickly found there was absolutely no way to reason her into believing that all of my siblings--including her mother--are, in fact, still Grandma's children. Even though we are big.

Perhaps in another ten years or so I'll explain to her that as I've grown bigger, my relationship with my mother has changed. But she has never stopped being my mother, and I have never stopped being her daughter.

When you are very, very little, it's very easy to expect your mother to take care of your needs. You don't really think about it. You're little; she's big; clearly, it's her job to take care of you since you can't do it all on your own. It doesn't mean you aren't thankful for everything she does, but you think she's required to do everything she does. If she didn't, where would that leave you?

But as the years pass by, I notice all of the ways my mother still takes care of us. Most people would probably say the things are little. Phone calls. Comforting talks after break-ups with boyfriends. Listening to someone who just needs to vent. Sending leftovers back with children. Quilts. Jewelry. Other creations. Scrabble games. Sharing recipes, with an added bonus of in-call support of the would-be chef. Jokes. Games. Sharing her washer and dryer. Baking bread. Planning birthday gatherings.

The list could go on. But I guess the point of all of it is this: she still does a lot for me, and I'm grateful. She's always been a wonderful mother. And if, as they say, I'll eventually wind up like her--I'm very much okay with that. Because she's one of the best people I know.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

Ballerina Bunny Bag

Oh, that I had a camera. Because if I had a camera, I would take a picture of my ballerina bunny bag and post it here. Instead, you'll have to settle with a description. I periodically forget that I still have it, but I can't help smiling every time I come across it.

My ballerina bunny bag is small. It's pink. And it has a lace-fringed heart stitched onto it. A cross-stitched ballerina bunny, more or less en-pointe, occupies the center of the heart. She's wearing a blue tutu, blue toe shoes, and she has a blue bow in her hair.

I have had this bag for almost twenty years. My mom made it for me when I started ballet lessons. (I believe I was five. Maybe six.) I used to carry my own shoes in it. And my, how I loved this ballerina bunny bag. Really, I still love this ballerina bunny bag.

Like my printer, it has served many functions. I didn't last very long in ballet, so the ballerina bunny bag became a book-carrying ballerina bunny bag I used to take down to the Bookmobile. As I recall, my voracious reading habits threatened to split the seams more than once. But my mom always mended the bag, and I kept finding inventive ways of packing ten or more books into it.

I've carried notebooks in it. I've moved it to every new place with me. Much to my dismay, if I couldn't find a different bag, it sometimes came with me to my first job. ("Really," she would say, "Isn't it time to get rid of that?") I've come to agree that it's probably not something to carry around anymore, but I will never get rid of it. And this is why: my mother made it for me.

She's a skilled seamstress and adept with a needle, so I'm sure that neither the cross-stitching nor the sewing took her long. But it was, nevertheless, an hour or two (if even that) that she took to make something for me. An hour or two when she had five little children, each of us with five different sets of activities.

This bag has a tendency to pop up, sometimes seemingly from nowhere, when I feel as though I've been ignored or as though I'm inadequate or as though nobody really knows me personally in quite the way I wish they would or could. It pops up when I feel disliked or un-loved. And every time, it serves as a visible reminder of one earthly person who has always loved me and who knows me and accepts me.

Any time I mention it, Mom begs me to get rid of it. But I can't. It's a visible reminder of a parent's love and I just can't let that go. I rather imagine that once I have a child, they will hear the story of a magically appearing ballerina bunny bag. And then they will see the proof. It's an odd thing to keep as a keepsake, I'm sure.

But how many tangible reminders do we get? And how easily can we let them go?

My Mom is Awesome, or A Late Mother's Day Post

Yesterday, a member of my ward's Relief Society presidency asked if I would be willing to teach a Relief Society lesson. This Sunday. Tomorrow. I said yes.

And then, I promptly panicked. (Paniced? No matter how I spell that particular conjugation, it just looks wrong...) Not because teaching intimidates me. It doesn't, really. Like my dad, I inherited an actual liking for standing in front of people and talking. Alas, unlike my dad, I don't have the same innovative genius for object lessons. But maybe that comes with time.

Anyway, I promptly started to worry, because I'm teaching a lesson from the Joseph Smith manual. I've never taught from that particular manual before. In my former ward, I taught lessons from General Conference talks, and those were much more loosely structured. Or so it seemed.

And here we come to why my mom is awesome: she's totally willing to discuss these types of things with me. And she's very good at talking me down from irrational worries. (E.g. "The only way your lesson will be really bad is if you don't prepare at all and if you're the only one talking.") She spent a goodly amount of time talking to me, pointing out that I had been taught the same lesson last Sunday when I went to the home ward and that I now knew how not to teach it* (which is an absolutely true statement of fact), referring different Conference talks to me, mentioning a couple of thoughts she'd had when she first read the lesson... she did what any good tutor and helper would do. She didn't tell me how to present my lesson, but she provided me with a lot of places to look. A lot of things to think about. And the confidence in myself I needed to know that teaching from the manual didn't have to be terribly different from the way I taught Conference talks.

My mom is a pro at this: I've met few people in this world who are better than she is at building people. Particularly her children. And while I grant that she's biased about her children, and she sees many reasons and knows many ways to build us up because we're her children, I'm grateful for that particular talent of hers. So yeah, she's pretty much awesome.

*I felt very validated when she mentioned this. Last week, we both meant to ask each other if we understood what the teacher was doing with her lesson...what points she was making, etc...and we both forgot. But we remembered when we were talking yesterday. Yet another way, it would seem, we are a little bit alike. More than a little, depending on who you ask. But when people say I'm like her, I consider it one of the best compliments I can get.