I’ve never been the mushy type.  And when we found out four years ago we were having a baby girl, I got a bit of a bewildered look in my eyes.  Sure, my favorite color is pink, but I’m not much for princesses and stuffed animals.  My favorite Disney Princess has always been Pocahontas.  Honestly, none of that changed until my little girl was old enough to start having likes and dislikes of her own.  And guess what?  She is Disney’s biggest fan and there’s not a princess that she doesn’t love.  Give her a tutu and some high heels and she is set for any adventure.

One of the really cool things, though, about having a daughter is the bond between a mom and a daughter.  Remember, I’m not the sappy kind, so my poor mom has had to deal with that all these years.  🙂  She’s described it with all the grace in the world like, “You loved to spread your wings and we were just trying to keep up,” but at the heart of it, I was always doing something and never had time to snuggle, even as a young kid.

But my daughter?  Snuggle central.  At 3.5 years old she’ll walk in a room and announce, “Family hug!”  And her perfect day involves snuggling about 40% of the time.  Suffice to say, she’s taught me a lot.  I’m pretty sure my parents have had more than a few laughs about it.  I mean… they’ve been dealing with it for 29 years now, and this 3 year old comes along and totally changes me.  🙂

Anyway, my mom is a teacher and came to visit for a week this summer.  She called it Mom Week, and the idea was for her to clean, run errands, babysit, etc.  Ummm… yes, please!  That’s a dream!  We ended up talking her into staying 2.5 weeks (we’re sneaky like that), and of course we didn’t make her do all those things everyday.  But man, it was incredible!  Having my awesome mom around for 2.5 weeks, and having a husband who not only tolerated it, but loved it as much as I did.  That says worlds about both my husband and my mom.  I can only pray that I have the same relationship with my future son-in-law.

Yes, it was a fantastic visit.  My mom is the most selfless person in the world.  We spent two and a half days grocery shopping and making 35 freezer meals and about 10 loaves of zucchini bread.  That. is. exhausting.  At one point I got a little nostalgic.  I had to drive to Williamsburg to photograph a house for a real estate listing and my mom came along.  While I photographed, she stayed in the car… and it took me back to when I played softball or was in the marching band.  She’d come along and read a book while she waited.  She’s always so patient.  It was neat to have that same feeling now at 29 that I felt back then.  🙂

Well, I’m done writing a book now!  I could go on and on about how awesome my mom is, and how I hope to be a mom like her, but instead I’ll share some sunrise pictures we got on a very windy beach day while she was here!