A little girl, she wants to everything her mommy is. She looks in the mirror, running her fingers through her golden curls, and thinks how it would be to have deep auburn waves like her. She smiles, trying to make her lips just the shapes mommy's are when she smiles. Tilting her head just a touch she remembers that picture of mommy and wonders, 'do I look like her when I do this?'

This is an age old story. I think it's born in every girl to be 'just like mommy'.  We probably all remember a similar moment in our own girlhood.

How do we reach that little heart, the one reaching out to copy our every move- and fill them with security in their own beauty?  How do we turn those eyes of longing from the mirror, and show them that true beauty lies within. 

Do they see little discontents in our lives? Our we striving to be the image of someone else still? The neighbor that can wear anything and it looks classy? The cashier that's a size 2? Or maybe just a longing to have the figure we once had. Do they hear us degrading our own image, maybe the few extra pounds our hips could drop? Our face? Afraid to let a couple wrinkles show? These things will mold the way they think of themselves.

I think the mother who is fully content in who she is, will raise daughters who are also secure in their own image. 

I am guilty, society all but teaches us to be discontent with our various features. We idolize those with a 'perfect image' or a 'flawless face'... But what defines these things? We need to stop doing our daughters a disservice and let them see a little pride in just 'being who you are'. 

That said, I do think it is sweet when my little one wants to just like her mommy, and I hope I can point her to follow in more ways than poise, mannerisms, and looks. :-)

Being a mommy is more than picking up toys and washing dishes... it's more than fixing their meals and giving baths. 

Being a mommy is much like being a lover, you do these things BECAUSE you love them, not because you're supposed to do them to be a good mommy...

So on the days where the laundry piles, where the babies are sick, where the kitchen drips with yesterdays grease, and the house smells like a waste can full of diapers- you aren't a bad mommy. Yes, the house needs to be cleaned, but the same love that compels us to keep things tidy, also compels us to lay down our goals for the needs of those we love. Sometimes the need IS clean socks for your husband who is having a hard day at work. Sometimes it's a freshly scrubbed kitchen or a vacuumed living room for him to come home to. And some days it might even be a 5 course meal! ... but there are days where it is holding your baby and reading to your toddler, because our goal, after all, is love. 

So even if your goal today isn't roses and chocolates all around (or if your great endeavor at valentines with toddlers results in messy smiles and pricked fingers), make it your goal to love; and in loving, you will meet their needs, and they will know they have the very, very best mommy the earth has known.

Being a mommy is the greatest joy in the world. From carrying new life and feeling those first wiggles, to that first cry and smile... on through all the little stages. It couldn't be more rewarding.

But lately I've been thinking, I don't always focus on the rewards. I don't look for the joy in the mundane. I don't revel in each new step. I let it slip past because I'm too busy trying to make sure everything runs smoothly. I miss the excitement of 'helping mommy make the cake', because I want it to be 'perfect' for my little girl. I miss the grin of delight at the gifts, as I'm trying to take the 'perfect' picture to save the memory. I miss the opportunity to share hearts with my three year old, because 'that's the fifth time you asked that question, now just obey'. And at the end of the day I stop and think... I'm too busy.

I'm too busy living in the fast lane to walk through the flowers with my three year old. To really slow down, and see her joys, and her frustrations. To listen to her jabber, and jabber, and jabber some more. But if I'm too busy today, and it's just 'jabber', when is that going to change? When am I going to be less busy? When is it going to change and be 'jabber' no longer? When she's 6 and starting school? When she's 12 and growing into a young lady? When she's 20 and getting married??

I realize I need to look for and find the rewards in being a mommy today. To stop my own hustle, and listen to the heart of my little girl (even if it's 'just' her telling me for the tenth time that she wants *this* doll in the catalog, or that 'Cinderella has the other slipper, Mommy'.)

You know, those eager eyes turned towards mine are looking for something. When she looks, is she going to have her heart filled? Or is she going to see a mommy that is too preoccupied and busy to notice her. We all need affirmation, and I want to be there for each one of my princesses.

I wrote this several months ago and realized today that though I never published it I needed to read it again. I thought maybe there is another mommy who could be encouraged, and I'm putting it out for you all, even if it is old.