בס''ד

Being a Mother..................

Reminiscing is a wonderful past time. Looking at old pictures of when my daughters were babies and growing up. Today they are each mothers of six children. Yesterday, my son was a toddler looking for cookies. Today, he is all grown up with broad shoulders and who towers over me. Where has the time gone?

I don’t really know why, but the other day I was thinking back to the early days of our marriage. I remember how much I wanted to be pregnant and start a family. I would dream about the little girls and little boys we would have.

One day, I wasn’t feeling so well and I went to the doctor. After a couple of test, the doctor told me I wasn’t sick, I was pregnant and going to be a mother. I was so excited I couldn’t believe my news. I told my husband that I was going to have the best pregnancy. I read every piece of pregnancy information that I could fine. No internet then! I had to rely on books. Just thinking that there was a miracle inside of me, a new little person, growing and developing would bring a smile to my face.

I would sit and wonder is my little baby a son or a daughter. Now, I am going back 39 years, before the days of ultrasound, when the doctor’s guess was as good as anybody else. The old thought that if you carried high and pointy, you had a girl and if you had major back pains and carried low, that was a boy. I wonder how many times these old tales were correct?

What would our child be like? Who would our child look like? Would my child be laid back or a ball of fire? What kind of mother will I be? Will I be anxious or relaxed? So many unanswered questions. Nine months is a very long time. You never stop thinking. There is so much to do. Looking, but not buying anything until our baby was born, thinking on possible names, dreaming on how I would fix up a nursery. Time moved very slowly.

I’m getting bigger and bigger. When I sit, I rest my arms on my stomach, while talking and patting my baby. I know my child so well and my love is indescribable.

Oops, was that a contraction? Not sure. I think I will go and lie down. There! It happened again and again. Oh, oh my water broke. My bed is drenched. Time to go to the hospital. The anticipation that first part of the journey is almost over. My husband calls my parents to come right away. He tells them he is too nervous to drive. I remind him to call the doctor and hospital.

Contraction after contraction and then it was time. The doctor said, “one big push,” and the lights went out. The anesthesiologist had put me out for the last couple of pushes. That was how they did deliveries in my day.

Waking up a few minutes later, all alone in a small room, a nurse entered and I asked about my baby. “You have a beautiful, healthy little girl and you can see her when we move you to your room,” she said so matter of fact. What was only a few minutes seemed like a lifetime. I felt so sad, here I was a mother for the first time in my life and I haven’t yet met my daughter. It was such a let down. This was not right. A mother should never be separated from her child. I promised myself, if I ever became pregnant again, the delivery would be different.

And so it was. Two years later. I experienced the most beautiful delivery. I was awake and from a mirror over my head, I could see my precious second daughter being born.

My daughter is crying and so am I. She is lying on my stomach still attached to the umbilical cord, a little snip and I hear the nurse saying “here Mom, hold your new baby.” All I can do is hug and kiss her. She feels so good. Soon she will have a bath and I will feel her soft pink skin next to my cheek. I tell my daughter how much I love her.

The old saying that a mother’s love is forever is such a true statement. We mothers may get annoyed at something our child has done and scold them, but we never stop loving our child.

Mothers have the responsibility and obligation to raise her children from newborn to adulthood.

There are all different types of mothers. Biological mothers, adoptive mothers, step-mothers, foster mothers. Regardless what type of mother you are, your child looks up to you and counts on you to have their best interests at heart.

I have had the privilege to be a biological mother and an adoptive mother. Let me tell you except for giving birth, the biological mom and the adoptive mom is one and the same. The love you have for your adoptive child is no different than the love you have for your biological child.

It is interesting to me how little girls like to play mother. It is almost like they are practicing for their future role in life. So carefully they dress their dollies, feed them a bottle and cover their ‘baby’ snug as a bug in a dolly stroller. When they take their dolly out for a walk, they look like proud mothers. If only motherhood was so simple.

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Stay at home mothers take on different jobs. In a news article dated June 2nd/08 on CNN.com the headline read................ Mother's love worth $117,000 per year, study says.
Stay-at-home moms perform $117,000 worth of work per year Moms with outside jobs would receive $68,405 for motherly tasks, study says. Stay-at-home moms report working 94.4 hours per week “A lot of people think we sit and home and have a lot of fun," says mom of two.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/worklife/05/09/mom.salary.ap/index.html

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While surfing the internet, I found some profound mother quotes.

This is for all the mothers who have sat up all night with a sick toddler
In their arms, wiping up spit-up laced with hot dogs, birthday cake and fruit juice saying “it’s okay honey, Mommy’s here.......’’

For all the mothers who have run carpools and made dozens of cookies
for school teas and sewn costumes.......

And all the mothers who haven't because they are at work trying to
earn enough to keep on top of the bills....

This for the mothers who gave birth to babies they'll never see. And the mothers who took these babies and gave them homes and all their love.

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My mother a”h did many things in her life time. She was a stay at home mom who felt her place was at home and ‘not to go to work’. She believed that taking care of her family, being home when her children came home from school and preparing a good meat super meal for her husband & children was her role in life.

With all this, my mother believed that you had to help your community. She volunteered delivering hot meals to the elderly, sewed costumes for my school and ballet plays and baked cookies, pies and cakes whenever she was asked.

My mother was famous for her cheese cake.

CRUST
2 tablespoons of butter [I use canola oil] 1 cup brown sugar
2 cups crushed cornflakes
1½ cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder [1 Israeli package]
Mix together and put aside

FILLING
-1 lb of wet cheese [I use 1 container of baking cheese from Tnuva]
-2 eggs separated
-¾ cup milk
-½ cup white sugar
-2 tablespoons flour
-squirt of vanilla

-Beat egg whites stiff. Combine all the ingredients except
egg whites and beat well.
-add egg whites and beat until mixture is totally combined

Using approx. 9x13 baking pan cover the bottom with half of the crust. Pat down. Pour the filling and cover with the remainder of the crust. Bake for 1 ¼ hours 160c. When finish baking leave the cheese cake in the over with the heat turned off for 30 minutes. This will set the cake and not allow it to fall. Cool and refrigerate for several hours before serving.

Toppings
Optional......strawberry yogurt, sour cream, strawberry sauce made from frozen berries.

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