Thank you for the six am's wiping up baby puke, patting backs and warming bottles with one slipper on and one slipper off.

Thank you for silently crying along side us when we wouldn't stop at four in the morning.

Thank you for changing 230293023920392039203 diapers full of poop.

Thank you for cleaning the snot from our noses.

Thank you for taking warm, clean face cloths to our filthy little hands and wondering with much amusement what you'll ever do with us.

Thank you for the tears hidden behind closed doors or turned backs and all the, "Mommy'll be there in a minute, she just needs a few seconds."

Thank you for sacrificing decades of your life to make sure we don't grow up to be monsters.

Thank you for second chances--either mine, for being an idiot child, or yours--for whatever reason. Raising a child is never easy, nor is being human. Some times we make mistakes with our lives. Bad things happen, but you're our mother and it's hard to hate you.

Thank you for letting us make those mistakes with those friends you knew were bad news, that boy you saw right away that would break our hearts, or letting us date that girl you tried to warn us was going to be bad news. Letting us fall and stumble for the first time must have been so very hard for you.

Thank you, most of all, for being a mother.

Thank you, Mom, for being my mother.