Well Worth the Sacrifice

My mother is a saint.

Growing up, she was the kind of mother who would literally give up the last morsel of her favorite food to give it to her children. She sacrificed her dreams of becoming a doctor to be our mom. Like many other mothers, she became our taxi driver, short-order cook, fashion designer, hair dresser, sounding board, therapist, nurse, advocate, among many other things that are too numerous to list. If you were to look up the definition of mom in the dictionary, you would find a picture of my mom in it. As she usually says: "There's just one mother, and that's me".  But a lot of sacrifice went into being that kind of mother, and that's why to me, she is nothing short of a saint.

A lot of the mothers I have been blessed to know are like that. They are perfectly happy to sacrifice their own wishes and dreams on behalf of their children's.

Not me.

I am a selfish mom. I love my kids beyond all limits of imagination, but I cannot fathom giving up so much of my own self for these two little creatures that sometimes just don't appreciate ANYTHING.  No, I won't give you the last bite of my cupcake just because you want it. No, I won't clean up YOUR mess just because I'm mom and I'm supposed to. No, I will not change the channel to watch yet another mind-numbingly boring Disney show. No, I will not sacrifice my summer to your desire to play summer baseball...

And then we have a weekend like this weekend, which was long and, ironically, full of my sacrificing my free time to shuttle little critters back and forth between multiple sporting events. A weekend full of pressure, as oldest child tries out for one of the much coveted spots on the all stars baseball team, and tries very hard not to show how anxious he is about making it. A weekend made all the more stressful after a game where said child's Sunday travel team was slaughtered and said child overheard an adult in the other team call them "the crappiest team ever".  And when he tells us with his little voice breaking up that he felt hurt and offended at that comment, well, heck, I was then hurt and mightily offended myself.

After a small part of me was secretly harboring a desire not to have to run all over God's creation to take this child to the many tournaments that making this team would entail, I now felt a raw, very personal ache for him to make that team. Because, lets face it, he is a good kid. A kind, decent, hard-working boy who actually asks very little from anybody, and all he really wants is to play ball. So, when we finally got the news this morning that he made the team, I could not wait for him to get home from school so I could tell him. And his reaction was well worth all the sacrifices that are sure to come.

I'm a happy mom.