Undoubtedly my favorite gift each year is my Mother’s Day Report Card. Our 7-year-old daughter dictates to my husband Bill the “subjects” that she thinks I’ve been working on this year. It’s always a fascinating list to me and reminds me of why I wanted so much and endured such a long wait to become a mother. The Mother’s Day Report Card also reminds me of how a child’s thoughts can turn a simple piece of cardstock into a treasure. I’m also saving these report cards for the teenage years when I  may become as many well-intentioned moms do “the worst Mommy in the whole wide world.” I’ll be clutching my report cards when she no longer wants to play Parcheesi and have a nibble tray with me after school because her friends are “hanging out.” I don’t know how many more years exactly I can count on getting an A+++ so I’m savoring every minute of it.
So on this Mother’s Day I raise my glass to those women who became moms by giving birth and others who became stepmoms through marriage and to birth moms, foster moms, those who long to be moms, those moms who have lost children and those like me whose deep desire to become a mom led them to adopt.

Happy Mother’s Day one and all.