Moms are Awesome

Moms are Awesome for so many reasons, but here is my reason today.

When I was in first grade, my daycare played The Newsies frequently and as a result, and I am not kidding, I developed a New York accent. Sadly, I am from California and here professionals call that a speech impediment. My mom took me to speech therapy classes where I met my childhood bestfriend, Nicole.

In the fifth grade, I had shingles, ring-worm, and strep throat simultaneously. I was quarantined for 21 days. My mom stayed home and ensured I got all my homework done...in the process discovering I was illiterate and suspected I was dyslexic. Add that to the "cage-sour" and ADHD and I am legitimately shocked to be alive right now.

But despite the headaches, my mom never gave up on me. She figured out how to pay for me to go to Sylvan Learning Center, where a team of awesome albeit expensive tutors helped me go from a 2nd grade reading level to a 12+ level in about 3 months. Sadly, spelling and grammar are still dodgy at best.

Nevertheless, I went on to high school and AP English where my papers routinely "bleed" and the most common tragedy was the comma. But I passed the test with a 4 and went to college to become an environmental civil engineer. I took a Science Fiction/Fantasy class my fourth year where my final project was to write a short story. Mine was 20 pages long and only needed to be 5.

I graduated Magna Cum Laude with honors and a BS in civil engineering. I have since started working with an environmental consulting engineering firm and in about 4 months, I wrote a 143,000 word book. My husband's words were, and I quote, "you're a wordy little bastard, aren't you?" referencing DBZ Abridged season 1.

The gist...none of this would have been possible if not for an amazingly supportive and annoyingly persistent mom who put her entire single-mom life on hold to raise me, guide me, nurture me, and kick me in the ass occasionally. So for all you mothers out there, first, a toast to being epically mom, and second, keep up the hard work, even when you would rather curl up and cry. Your children will benefit from it and their futures will be brighter for it.