I spent the morning with a young mom and her two daughters.
It was a windy, fall day.
I mulled some hot apple cider.
I baked some fresh granola.

I sent her a text and told her that I would have the garage door open for her.
Her youngest is only two months old.
Her other daughter will be two in a little over a month.
I did not want her to carry a baby all the way from the driveway to the front door.

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Our youngest daughter drove a 2003 Toyota Corolla.
We always chose a safe economy car for the youngest driver to take to school.
That car served our two youngest children well.
It had been very faithful.

This past summer my youngest daughter was an intern in Philadelphia.
All the interns lived in the same building.
The building was also the place where youth groups would come each week.
The interns led groups of students to various locations around the city, in which they served.

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I noticed the woman before I noticed the car.
She was standing behind a minivan with a phone in her hand.
She was taking a picture.
She walked to the passenger side of the car.

It was then that I noticed the passenger side door was wide open.
She walked to the door and peered inside.
She went to the back of the car again with her phone.
She walked with a purpose towards the front door of the store.

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Any woman knows how exciting it is to find something on sale.
When a woman finds something she likes on sale, she usually buys it.
When that something on sale is clothing, she may buy more than one.
If she buys more than one, the item will be in different colors with different accessories.

This is what happened to me over the weekend.
I got quite a few emails about a two-day sale.
I perused the different sale items online and kept coming back to one dress.
I was not sure which size would be best since it did not have numeric sizes.

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Many years ago a friend came to visit.
She was not a friend from my childhood.
She was a friend that came into my life many years later.
Motherhood bound us together and many of our talks centered around our children.

Politics never crept into our discussions; however one day a controversial topic did arise.
The issue of abortion came up and I found myself listening to her views.
I do not believe in abortion personally but I could ever legislate it for another woman, she said.
I remember praying for wisdom and gentleness when I responded.

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When I was pregnant with my first baby I was so naive.
I had a few baby books that taught me what to expect during delivery.
The doctor answered many of my questions.
Some things just had to be experienced to be understood.

A mother never anticipates anything but a textbook birth.
Your due date is given and that is the date you aim towards.
An ultrasound was done but we didn’t want to know whether the baby was a boy or a girl.
We wanted to be surprised.

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I was coming around the bend on my morning walk.
I usually go around my route twice.
This was only my first time around.
I could see my house as I approached it.

I left one of the garages open but the house itself was locked.
My husband had already gone to work so it was his garage bay that I opened.
My daughter, home from college, was still sleeping for at least another hour.
I did a double take.

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I couldn’t wait.
I was going to take care of a four-month-old little girl for the afternoon.
Her mother is a dear friend of my daughter.
She and her husband also have two sons.

This young mother came here because she is a bridesmaid for my daughter’s June wedding.
This particular day she came for the Bachelorette party.
It was not at all like the quintessential Bachelorette.
It was the most clever idea; the mastermind of my oldest daughter, one of the maids of honor.

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I do laundry almost every day.
I really enjoy it.
There is something satisfying about taking freshly laundered clothes out of the washer.
There is something about the smell of clothes when they come out of the dryer.

Growing up, my mother never used the clothes dryer.
Everything was hung out on the clothesline.
There are those that love to sleep in a barn loft on a bed of hay.
I loved to sleep on sun-kissed sheets just taken in from the line.

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Every mother can attest to the fact that a child will never throw up in the bathroom.
They will usually throw up inches before the threshold.
Those few inches are the difference between the rug and the tile floor.
Those few inches mean everything.

Children run quickly to the dinner table or to a favorite aisle in the toy store.
However, children never seem to know they are going to get sick until it is too late.
It’s not their fault; sometimes that sickness comes on too quickly.
It makes an interesting morning or middle of the night for the mother.

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