All in all.....

Do you ever get irritated about what your momma didn't teach you? Well I do. Sure I tell myself that she probably did the best she could but when I am honest with myself  I realize that she was unable to parent beyond her comfort zone.

My biological mother could have played a bigger role but for whatever reason couldn't or wouldn't.

I don't hold any ill feelings, I only wish that she had been able to realize how valuable her knowledge and experience as a woman, wife and mother would have been to her daughters.

Don't be sad for me, valuable lessons were still learned, as I mentioned in yesterdays blog, children can even learn from our failures and weaknesses.  I have to believe every road I traveled led me to this place in my life. God always prepares us for the road ahead and uses whatever it takes to make us the person we need to be for our own children.

As I reflect on my life as a daughter I think about all that  my mothers could have shared with me to help better prepare me for the roles I play in my life today.  I estimate that about 25% of what I learned was from what they didn't do, 25%  from what they did do,  and the rest through trial and error. Maybe this is normal.

I don't want that for my daughter, regardless of how she chooses to use my knowledge and experience I would rather her say I tried to tell her then why didn't you tell me. Each generation builds on the foundation of the last one, I want hers to be as firm as I can possibly make it  so she doesn't have to spend a large portion of her life repairing and filling in all the weak spots.

I am thankful for the role that my mom played in my life when my biological mom walked out of it. Although she filled a gap in my life,  the scars caused by this experience did not erase my biological mom from my thoughts and certain times of the year those wounds are still felt, like mothers day

As I think about my own children I could never imagine walking away from them especially knowing their thoughts of me would continue to bring them pain long after I was gone.

My experiences have taught me that being present is pretty important so I am gonna do all that I can to make my presence in their lives count.

I started a journal of such that I will one day give to my daughter and maybe my son too. It contains stories, experiences and lessons learned, some they will have heard along the way, but we all tend to forget things as we grow older, so they will be able to simply turn a page to refresh their memories. I think its a pretty cool idea and I know I would have treasured something like this from my own mom. 

As mother's day approaches I will recall many things about my own moms, some will bring me laughter some will bring me tears, but all in all I don't think I turned out to bad and I think I am a pretty good mom with still much to learn and much to teach.