mom things.

There are some things that I absolutely must remember were my favourite things when I was a little girl, just in case I'm about to have a little girl. I want to be able to give her the things that my mother gave to me that made my childhood special and fun.

1. I loved when I came home from school and my room was clean.
Everybody knows that moms clean waaaaay better than any kid ever could. And this only ever happened to me a handful of times (the coming home to a squeeky clean bedroom thing) and what I loved about it most was that I could walk around my room for a good hour or more just observing how my mother organized my things. I always preferred the places she chose to put things, the order she chose to put things in, the way she folded, made my bed, where things were on my dresser and so on. I would always try and keep it exactly how she made it for as long as possible.

2. My mom singing to me.
Mom was big on singing (she still is, I guess, but now she sings really annoying songs that get stuck in your head for days!). I remember when I was really little she sang Skinny Marinky Dinky Doo (I don't know how they spell the name of that song..) to me in the bathtub and she would sing to me when we cuddled and it always turned me into butter.

3. Some really, really simple things are sometimes the nicest things of all.
When I was upset, sometimes my mom would tuck my hair behind my ears, over and over again, and it calmed me right down and sent shivers down my neck and made me sleepy and happy. It always made me feel better,
I liked when I was treated my age. You know, when I was 5 I liked being treated like a 5 year old (hold my hand when you cross the street, eat 3 more bites of your dinner, etc) and when I was 13 I liked being treated like I was 13 (finally being able to sit in the front seat with the airbags, bike riding around the neighbourhood alone).

4. Little surprises.
I liked when my mom surprised me with chocolate she picked up for me while she was at the store, I liked when she bought me new socks or something else that I needed but hadn't asked for. It showed me that she did think about me when I wasn't around and that she did notice what I liked and what I needed. One time I came home and my mom had gotten me a little white mouse in a pink cage.
I liked big surprises, too. The best thing my mom did for me was re-decorate my bedroom. She did this all the time. Most of the time she did it just because she felt like it. I loved when she did this, it always made me feel like a princess. Most people comment on how when I was little I never came out of my bedroom. That's because it was always such a special little place for me.

5. Time and attention.
Sometimes when I was little I felt like I didn't get enough attention. It's true that I thrived in solitude (and still do) and so I spent a lot of time by myself. But I loved when my mother asked me how school was (which she did surprisingly rarely). And if I needed help with my homework I liked when she at least tried instead of yelling at me to stop crying and figure it out. Even if she couldn't figure it out either, I liked when she took the time to see if she could help. And sometimes she could help. A lot of the time she just didn't bother. My mom had 2 other kids and they were handfuls, so I can't blame her for ever feeling overwhelmed and irritated. A lot of the time I didn't even really need help, I just wanted to see if she would do it. Kids are weird.

6. Thrifting
My whoooooole life is full of memories of me and mom driving around to different thrift stores and checking them out. We'd buy stuff sometimes, and sometimes we didn't. I always got to pick all the toys I wanted. We've done that for as long as I can remember and we still do it to this day (I don't get toys anymore..). It's not a big deal but it's something that we've always done together and when I think about it it always makes me tear up. I love my mom so much... which brings me to:

7. Traditions
There's a couple of these. Mom and I had favourite movies to watch together, that were just ours.
Every Halloween my mom made my costume, which made mine special compared to all the other kids with store bought costumes. A lot of the time 3 or 4 kids in my class were in the exact same costume. But never me.
Every Christmas eve I could count on getting pajamas. I still like getting new pajamas on Christmas eve because it makes the night and it makes christmas morning so much better.

Those are all the things I can think of right now..
Those are the things I want to give to my daughter, if I have one..
Every single one of those things the my mom, and only my mom, did for me that made me sooooo happy. When I think about it, I know I have the most amazing mother in the world, I just want to be half as good as she is.