I Wanna Be Like Yoohoooohooo

Today is an important day. It’s a day of celebration for a woman who it is impossible to know and not love. A woman who has shaped my life more than she knows.

A day about a woman who really is the embodiment of the word mother.

Mam, mammy, maaaaam.

4 years ago this month you were just about to commence radiotherapy treatment for breast cancer just as I was about to become a mother myself. The prospect of losing you was unbearable. Yet you got through it and you were there when I gave birth holding my hand through it as you have done through everything else in my life.

Now I’m a mother of two, you are a Nanna to a whopping fourteen and yet you manage to make time for every one of them and make them feel adored. Izzy and Chloe idolise you and Dad and I can’t tell you how much pleasure I get from seeing my children growing and loving you as I do.

They say it takes becoming a parent to appreciate a parent and I don’t know if I completely agree. I appreciated you for 28 years before I had children. Yet these last four years have taught me a lot. I am grateful for you. I understand you more. I need you just as much as always – just in different ways.

You have taught me that parenting is forever.

And I’m more than ok with that.

I may be 32 years old but sometimes I need to be sat with you, having a cuppa and telling you about my day as much or even more than I was 12.

I hope that you realise just how much you have done for all of us and how we can be stronger knowing that you and Daddy are there.

Life has never been easy for you. Since you were a child yourself you had responsibilities that you shouldn’t have had to worry about. Since then with all of your children and all the smiles came worries, hospital appointments, labours and stress. Yet you never complain about it. Just continue to help us in every way you can.

If in all my life all I achieve is to be more like you I would consider it to be a life well lived.

I think everyone could benefit from being a little more like you.

The world would certainly be a better place for it.

Happy 60th Mam. Hope you enjoy everything we have planned.