The Best Mother’s Day Gift

Jeanna G3 Comments

My daughter has been dancing her way through life for as long as I can remember. She jazz walks into a room, pirouettes her way to the mailbox, and slow taps Shirley Temples on repeat while telling me about her day.

This Mother’s Day weekend, my friend is freezing through hours of her son’s hockey tryouts, my sister is silently watching her daughter from the cart path through a combined 36 holes, and I’m fixing hair, makeup, and costumes for my daughter’s dance recital. Together we roll our eyes and ask why these things are planned on Mother’s Day weekend. The nerve! Don’t they know we just want to sleep through a weekend for once?? But we grab our coffees, load the car, and gps our way to whatever our calendar is reminding us to do.

But today I sat in the audience and felt gratitude for two things: 1) That the auditorium was dark as tears streamed down my face, because 2) the joy that radiated from my beautiful daughter shot me straight through the heart. Being with her in that moment is what motherhood is all about. Sure, laundry, taxiing, coaching, feeding, mending, funding, negotiations and acquiescing is the work. Witnessing their joy in being who they truly want to be is the ultimate reward.

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Jeanna G4 Comments

I used to love Highlights magazines for the different front and back covers. I would study the picture of what was right on the front in order to identify what was wrong on the back. I think this practice trained us for adulthood. We grow up with a picture in our minds of what we want our surroundings to look like, but sometimes what’s on the back cover is our reality. We need to, at times, take a step back and take in the whole picture in order to identify what’s out of place, what doesn’t fit, and what we need to fix.

Makeovers

Jeanna GLeave a comment

In middle school, the early 90s for me, we had pretty mid-out hairstyles. The 80s were far-out, so we were in a weird limbo, working our way back to some form of reserved. Aqua Net was essential. I had “The Wave,” a hard wall of bangs high above my forehead. At a slumber party, I was dared to shave the side of my head. I covered it with a section of hair so my mom wouldn’t know. (I have an incredible amount of hair). When she picked me up, she caressed my head while talking to my friend’s mom. It’s like she knew. Wide-eyed, I slinked away like any tween would from her mother’s touch. My friends all covered their open mouths and held their breath.

My daughter told me today that her best friend decided to chop her own hair off on a whim. She covered her mouth and giggled. I looked out the window and smiled while cheering her friend on in my head. New style, new life! At that age, it was so easy to change our image and become someone new. Are we ever too old for a makeover?