Proud Paper Mom

Indulge me....
I am having a proud Paper Mom moment.
My 6th grader got straight A's on her report card.
She is the first of our bunch to ever do this.
I am very, very proud of her.  Not only has she successfully adjusted to middle school, she did it with straight A's (ok had to write it one more time). We are quite lucky here, all of our children do well in school.  I am proud of each of them.

We are lucky and I do know it and I thank God everyday for it.  Yesterday I witnessed the pain of a fellow mom while attending Bob's Discount Furniture's Mega Blood Drive at Foxboro Stadium.  It broke my heart.  As I stood in line to get the autographs of beautiful Patriot cheerleaders I overheard a conversation of a mom that has a child on the autism spectrum.  She was visiting the Red Cross resources information table.  She spoke of the struggles she has and the beauty and strengths of her nine year old child.   She was frustrated, sharing that she often falls between the cracks of services because of her good job and salary.  But the woman needs a break, her only down time occurs when her ex husband is in the picture and that sounded a tad unreliable.  When the Red Cross worker gave her the number of someone to call for social services and possible respite, the mom teared up (me too) she was so grateful with the hope of of a helping hand.  The Red Cross is an amazing agency and yesterday's blood drive was quite an operation.  It was nice to be a part of this event, considering it is the season of giving.

This little story relates to all the stress we mommas are feeling with the production of Christmas.  I recently listened to a step mom's toolbox recording and the theme was - take care of yourself.  As I get older I realize, if I am not nurturing my soul a little bit along the way, I am not nurturing the soul of the five kids I am trying to build.  It is hard to find ten or twenty minutes every so often to do something that makes me happy, something that is all about me, me, me.  I guess paper crafting is it, maybe reading before bed or a quick phone call to my mom.  It doesn't happen all the time but when it does, it centers me.  The woman I spoke about above, has added struggles and I can only imagine how badly she needs "me time".  I hope she finds a few minutes to center her soul this holiday season, I hope we all do --- Shopping, decorating, cooking, cleaning, parties, presents, wrapping all while doing our regular routines of working, lessons, homework and life can make a grown woman nutzo - Hang tough my friends----- it will all be over soon ---- make memories in the meantime.