Mothers Day

Of course my family spoiled me on Mothers Day with gifts, cute cards, plants, breakfast in bed, dinner and lots of love, but I thought I should give a little tribute to my own mother today.

August 13, 1980-Patricia Anne Lyman (eventually Rodriguez) gave birth to me! Yeah! Thank you mom for being pro-life!

My mother taught me a lot. Many of the lessons did not come by lectures, talks, or sit down instruction, but by example.

Let me try to give examples to explain what I mean. My mother is a daily grocery shopper and needless to say I was with her 90 percent of the time she ran to the store to get food for dinner. I can remember as a child being so embarrassed because I knew my mom would stop and talk to every mom with a baby, “oh your baby is so cute, how old is he/she?”, she would say. There was never a baby going unnoticed with my mom around. She always made that young mom feel like her baby was the cutest. She is still this way to this day, but now I am not embarrassed, but grateful that she taught me not to be afraid to give compliments, even to complete strangers. I love it when people give me and my girls compliments, so I'm sure my mother has lifted many hearts in her lifetime.

Another thing my mother taught me is sometimes “I LOVE YOU” can not only be said with words, but shown through deeds. Every morning she dragged me out of bed to get me to school. I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON, and this started very young. She had a difficult time just getting me out of bed let alone getting me to make my bed. (I'm sure she would ask me to do it, but I don't remember) But everyday I would come home from school and my bed would be made and all 20-25 stuffed animals lined up at the end of my bed in perfect order. Also, all of my laundry would be cleaned, folded and put away. My room would be picked up and nice and ready for me to come home to. At the time this just seemed normal, but now that I'm a mom I know just how difficult this is to accomplish EVERY DAY. I am grateful to her for this. I now know these were things she did to show me just how much she loved me.

There are many days I think to myself, “how did my mom do it?”. She didn't have the greatest circumstances raising us, but she somehow managed to raise me up to who I am today and for that reason I honor her this Mothers Day.

Thank you Mom!