In my book, Mother's Day falls right behind Christmas and Easter in importance. There is a bittersweet element to it, since my Mom has been gone for 9 years now. Those memories are beginning to not seem so fresh, and I still miss her - that is the "bitter". The "sweet" part is being married to Chrissie and sharing the adventure of raising 5 kids together.
Chrissie has been a Mom for 21 years now, and it started out rough. Her first pregnancy with Emily was brutal - back then (back in the eighties!) her doctor wouldn't even think of given her any kind of meds while pregnant, so Chrissie spent half her pregnancy throwing up. Constantly. I remember one stretch where she threw up every twenty minutes for several day. (I was the one holding her hair with the washcloth - powerless to help.) At one point she had to get IVs because of the dehydration. It was a difficult time. Thankfully, as later children came, as and as doctors relaxed a little, pregnancy became less traumatic, and the sick period shrank.
Everyone who knows Emily knows she is a strong, capable girl. We saw it when she was born. Emily apparently had decided that she didn't want to come out. So she wouldn't. For 14 hours. Chrissie couldn't walk for weeks.
The Lord is merciful, and somehow manages to selectively obliterate the memories of women so that they don't recall pregnancy or labor with any degree of accuracy. That's a good thing, because if Chrissie remembered it at all, Emily would be an only child. Oddly, those memories remain sharp with most husbands I've talked to, creating a safeguard against families with 20 children and a destroyed mom.
Even last night as we were walking past the baby aisle at Target, Chrissie started the "ooohing" sounds that mean she wishes she still had a baby. She constantly reminds me of how much she LOVED being pregnant. Go figure!
As a Mom, Chrissie is kind, charitable, patient and understanding - all of the things I am not. I am firmly convinced that if not for her influence, some of our kids would have long since been offered up on Craigslist by now as a "free to a good family." She is always afraid she hounds the boys too much, (untrue) and I can't imagine how difficult it would be to be the sole source of estrogen in a family of 5 testosterone-addled boys with very smelly socks.
We love her, I love her. She is a wonderful mother to our children, and a wonderful wife. She also has another role I wouldn't ever want - Bishop's wife - or Mother of the Ward. It is an odd position she finds herself in, and at times uncomfortable. She is a great advisor on those select things I can talk to her about, but a lot of the time she is in the dark about most things. Nobody wants to hear the conversation stop when you walk in the room - but it happens. The Stake President warned her that a lot of the time she would be the last person in the ward to know some juicy bit of gossip - and it has turned out to be true. But, all in all, she handles that role with grace and kindness, and the Ward is blessed to have her.
I love Chrissie, and admire her , and love being able to focus on her today. Happy Mother's Day to you, sweetheart, and all the other good Moms out there!
