Moms Need to Hear Nice Things About Their Kids

Yes, moms need manicures. We need nice bags, and recipes that make them look like they are a stylish Martha Stewart. But all of that is just the icing. The "cake" is our families...the children that make us a mom. And compliments about those amazing little creatures that have caused bags under our eyes, spit up on expensive dresses, and embarrassed us by asking inappropriate questions extremely loudly at just the wrong time mean more to us than any praise over a lovely bag or a gourmet dessert.

Today, when I got home and began thumbing through the mail I came upon a handwritten envelope with a local address from a person whose name I didn't recognize. Being that this was much more interesting then the sales flyers or my husband's ESPN Magazine, I opened it first. I found a handwritten note from one of the administrators at Ben's preschool. Having only known her as Miss Mary over the past two years, I hadn't recognized the last name on the return address. Her words brought tears to my eyes both when I read it the first time, as well as when I re-read it to my husband on the phone a few minutes later. While I won't bore you with the whole note, I will share the two parts that choked me up the most:

"You have been one of my favorite hello's and now you are one of my hardest goodbyes."

"This graduation is going to be a tough one for me. Ben has made a permanent impression in
my heart. To steal Dorothy's final words to the Scarecrow...I think I am going to miss
him most of all."

Even typing it brings tears to my eyes. I have seen Miss Mary in the afternoons when I pick Ben up, chatted with her when I have had reason to stop by the office, and shared laughs at the children's many performances over the last two years. She has always made a fuss over Ben, but she is amazingly kind and loving with every child I have seen her interact with. I never really considered Ben as having stood apart to her, yet always appreciated how genuinely kind she was to him and the rest of our family. Her note touched me so greatly, not only because she went through the amazing effort to send the personal note to our home instead of leaving it in his mailbox at school, but also because I had raised this little person that had made an impression with an adult at his preschool in this way. I felt this to be a huge compliment to him and his character, and, I can only hope, to his dad and I for how we are raising him.

I'll take a compliment of one of my kids any day over all the designer purses or manicures in the world :)