Written with love and devotion to my sweet teenage nieces

and any other teen girl (or boy) that reads this post

Right now as a teenager there are a lot of moments in each week, heck maybe daily, when you roll your eyes and think to yourself "My mom is so annoying!  She just doesn't understand what it's like to be me right now.  She grew up like a long time ago.  I mean the 80s were soooo looong ago and she just doesn't understand me at all.  She is such a dork."  I am here to tell you every letter, word, syllable of that statement is 100% false.  She understands it all.  She walked the hallways and felt alone.  She didn't have direction in her life and she wandered in search of who she wanted to become after high school/college.  She was embarrassed and peer pressured.  She made bad choices, gasp, had a crush or two or three, gasp-gasp and she rolled her own eyes at her mother.  

When you become a mother you learn a lot about your own.  You see her in a new light.  You respect her more and eventually you morph into her like a caterpillar emerging from its cocoon as a beautiful butterfly.  Man, I sound like my mom right now.  (Yes teenagers, that means you are the awkward, chubby, slow moving and hairy caterpillar and your mother is the beautiful, graceful, speedy, flitting from here to there and back here again to take you to your endless activities butterfly.)

There were days when you were little bitty and sick with a tummy ache that you looked up at her with fear in your eyes and said "Mommy, I think I just pooped in my pants" (no really, true story) and she didn't yell at you.  She didn't reprimand you or make you clean it up yourself.  She patted you on the back and told you it was okay.  She cleaned you up, cleaned your underwear up and you knew she was all you needed to make it better.  Just being around her at that age made everything better.  You drove her crazy back then, but she was crazy in love with you.

Remember the time you were playing stupid outside with friends and fell and busted your head open and the person who ran to you was your mother.  She held you in her arms, took you to get stitches and cried with you as you cried in fear and pain.  

Or as a teenager, when that boy broke up with you on the phone and ripped your heart out in a puddle on the floor she stood next to you and told you he wasn't worth it.  (She actually got on the phone with him and LET HIM KNOW you were better.  You deserved better and he wasn't worth it.)  Go Mom. Yeah! (again, true story)

She annoys you right now but just you wait and see.  One day soon she will be all you want on a day when you are alone and she will come running again to pat you on the back, tell you its okay and help you clean up the mess.  She loves you in a way words can't explain or define.  It's truly beyond compare and description and you won't know it until you stand in HER shoes one day.