What Was She, Twelve?

Just look at that slip of a girl:

  

Yep, that's my mom.  She was, I think, twenty-two at the time of this picture.

Married at eighteen, a mother twice over by the time she was twenty-one,

she dealt with toddlers and cloth diapers and cooking regular meals

 while I at that same age was apartment-slumming without my own vacuum cleaner

and regularly making a dinner of ramen.

(Cup O' Noodles.  It's like kibble for college students.)

She was protective of my physical safety (no playing in the street for me!)
and expected me to do well in school, 

but I joined this club or that sports team because I was interested,

not because she pushed me or thought it would look good on my college application.

She parented with a light touch: I remember few lectures, but she perfected a Really?! expression that could make me rethink a decision without a single word from her.

She also didn't sweat the small stuff.
I was in charge of my own clothes, my own friendships, my own school assignments. 

(Though she would, without complaint, help me out with late-night school reports.)
But why would she bother telling me to put on a sweater,

when I knew my own self if it was cold outside? 

(He looks like a tick!)

The best thing she ever did was nurture my love of reading.  She read to me and my sister before bedtime, and when I got older, and these started coming home from school--

-- she not only NEVER told me I had chosen too many books,

she also would check off a few more after I handed my wish list back.

Is it any wonder my book stand looks like this?

So, thanks Mom!  I'm glad I had you for a mother.

To you and all the other moms:

Happy Mother's Day!

ETA:

Mom and her girls, Mother's Day 2012:

We should have sat on her lap and recreated the original photo, eh?