Mother's Day Contest--Little Giraffe Throw Giveaway

When you're small,your mom is your world. You breathe in her scent and that is comfort, home. She's there for you when you drop the popcorn, when the dog crushes your favorite spring flower, and even when the kids on the bus make fun of your hair.

Somewhere along the way, the teen years happen, and most of us begin to think our mom is way too protective. She starts to embarrass us when she tells our friends about a doll we carried around, or how crooked our teeth once were, and that one time when we had a cold and our eyes were matted closed, we thought they had "gotten turned around."

We don't want her to hold our hands anymore because that's "not cool." So, being the mom she is, she'll stop holding your hand and let you go with your friends instead of keeping the traditional movie night at home. She'll drop you off down the street from wherever you're going so no one will see her (and you can pretend you magically appeared there). You swear to yourself and your diary that you'll never be like her.

Never, ever.

Then, a time comes when you start to think she may not be as bad as you thought she was. That you were no longer mad that she told you that you couldn't go to that concert or take her car, with 10 girls crammed in it, to the mall.

You might even (just maybe) think she was right about that boy from Chicago you dated in college and that he really wasn't for you.

She knows before you do that you've met "the one" and she knows he loves you like because of the way his eyes sparkle when he looks at you. You take for granted the times she helps you when you fight with him and just listens.

She cries as hard as you do when you miscarry your first child. She cries even harder as she cuts the cord for your firstborn son and the time that she holds her first granddaughter.

You look across that hospital room and see her smile and remember that she looked at you that way too, long ago, when she rocked you and read you books.

It is only then that you truly, truly, know what your mom means to you.

You understand why she did the things she did and are glad she did them that way--the way you'll do for your children.

Then, one hot, August day brings your world almost to an end. You hear the word cancer and aren't quite sure what it all means. It means lumpectomy, mastectomy, hysterectomy, chemotherapy, no hair and your mom crying and wanting just to die.

You know what you have to do. You never once (ever) think she won't make it. You go to the oncologist, you go sit hours and days in hospital rooms and try to figure out why it all happened.

Surgery after surgery, you shave your mom's head and tell her she looks beautiful. Try on wigs with her and pick out the craziest red hairstyle you can find to make her smile. You try to repay her for every scraped knee and tear she was there for in the 30 years you've been alive. You tell her she will be fine and that she has to fight for herself because we want her around.

You see a Little Giraffe blanky that was given to your own daughter, now torn and falling apart, the second one she's had since birth. The notecard originally attached to it talks about mommy's smell being on the blanket and as you touch her blanket, you weep.

You know what being a mom is now, and vow that you want to be like your mom. You swear to yourself that you'll be like her--exactly.

Every day I have her is my mother's day.