Thank you, Mom!

This Mother’s Day, we’re celebrating mothers of all kinds.

The mothers who raised us.

The mothers who are just finding out the word mother now applies to them.

The mothers who tried for years to become mothers and the mothers who became mothers by surprise. 

We’re celebrating mothers carrying babies, mothers whose little ones grew in other wombs, mothers who became mamas to children who were already running, already headed off to high school, already fully grown.

We’re celebrating the mothers who are joyful - whose days are filled with purpose and laughter and a sense of peace, and the mothers who are restless - who are tired, or bored, or overwhelmed. 

The mothers who are up at midnight rocking infants and the mothers who are dropping their children off for their first year of school. 

The mothers who have lost their own mothers, who are preparing their children to go off to school or to live on their own.

And the mothers who are holding brand new babies they’re just meeting for the very first time.

We see you, mama. We see you, and we celebrate you. 

And on behalf of babies, kids, and grown-ups everywhere, we want to say thank you.

Thank you for giving us your arms to hold us, for being our safest space, for being our definition of home.

Thank you for the careful way you surround us with beauty, for the sweet love you put into our nurseries and our outfits, for the endless hours of hair-fixing, for the pictures you take and hang on the walls.

Thank you for the nights we woke you up from a deep sleep to soothe our nightmares. Thank you for the way you always snuggled us close, tucked us in safely, sent us off to better dreams.

Thank you for packing the snacks and the sunscreen, for the thousands of day trips and family vacations you planned, for the memories you’re still helping us make.

Thank you for being the first person we call when we’re hurt or confused. Thank you for the scraped knees you’ve bandaged. Thank you for reminding us how to be brave.

Thank you for the work you do to feed us the right foods, teach us the right skills, help us learn to be kind. In a world that is so quick to tell you what you’re doing wrong, thank you for doing your best to do the right thing for us, every day, even when it’s so incredibly hard.

Thank you for the way you take care of yourself, for modeling what it means to love your work and pursue your passion. Thank you for showing us that the world is full of possibilities.

Thank you for teaching us the hard lessons - the ones that make your voice shake when you share them. Thank you for being our guide into the best AND most difficult parts of the world.

Thank you for being our teacher, our cheerleader, our refuge, and our first best friend.

Thank you for being a mother.

We hope that your Mother’s Day is as beautiful as you.