My mother sits on high school bleachers all day Saturday in a gym that smells like sweat, hairspray, and rhinestone glue just to watch me dance three rounds of Amateur Latin and Amateur Standard.
She speaks French with me even though I'm not that good, and she hasn't seriously spoken it since she taught it when I was three (? maybe? I can't remember how old I was).
She teaches well over twenty students private music lessons (drums, guitar, and piano) so we can pay for mine and my sister's dance lessons and everything else that entails, and still manages to cook a great dinner every night.
She reads to my little sisters, plays Polly Pockets with them, and acts interested in everything they have to say even though the rest of use are completely apathetic.
She doesn't care so much about a clean house that she won't let us fingerpaint or play with flour.
She graduated from college and married a great man, something for which I will be eternally grateful.
She was the girls' (or is it girl's?) camp leader for four (?) years much to the joy of all the young women. She was the crazy, cool leader who was a little bit of a rebel (our ward always had a boombox which would blare Stevie Wonder every morning to wake us up).
She served a mission in France and was better prepared to teach me and all of my siblings because of it.
She has good taste in books and music (something that I didn't realize for years...I always thought Earth, Wind, and Fire was so lame until just a little while ago).
She still drops everything to come help me even though I'm in college and should be able to work it out on my own (I can't usually).
She'll do my laundry, restock my pantry, buy me fake eyelashes and $7 hair spray. She'll chat with me on the phone while I walk from campus back to my apartment late at night when it's dark and I'm uneasy. She's the most incredible women I've ever met. She is my hero.
