Moms Talk: What Are Your Defining Mommy Moments?

Question: What are the defining moments of Motherhood for you?

Late Sunday night, after President Obama’s dramatic announcement about Osama bin Laden, I was thinking about 9/11, and where I was when I heard about the twin towers, and where my daughter, then a fourth-grader, was, and how those events changed the landscape of her youth.

In fact, I was thinking about writing about those conversations for this column when a much more important issue came to my attention. My son had his own dramatic announcement of the stomach flu, right there in the middle of the night, in the middle of my room.

Later, after a sleepless night and a trip to the doctor that included an emergency stop by the roadside in the rain, a friend complimented me on handling the unfortunate situation like an experienced mom. She has a young child herself, and therefore probably at least a few dramatic moments ahead of her on the journey through motherhood.

The next day, my son and I finally had our bearings back together enough for a quick trip to the grocery store, but my son was not happy about it and complained all the way there. I had him look at the flowers on display at the front of the store while I checked out, to keep his still recovering body away from the counter where other customers would complete their transactions. When I finished and walked over to him, he looked at me and smiled.

“I just got a great idea for a Mother’s Day present,” he said.

I love moments like that, that come just when you really need a simple reassurance that the sleepless nights and seemingly endless little battles are all worth it.

I have found, for my family, that some years seem to glide by smoothly with mostly happy times, while others, like this year, are marked by struggles and worries big and small. It’s in these times that a small gesture after a tough night, a hug, a carefully drawn picture, or an excited call from a young adult to tell me she just landed a job after months of searching, that serve to remind me how much I love being Mom to my children.

So as we prepare to bask for one day in the glow of being honored for what we do every day without hesitation, I want to know what little or big things remind you of how great it is to be Mom?