It’s April. Can you believe it? We’ve made it through winter. In our house, we survived spring break last week. Now, I feel like we’re coasting through the next two months until school is out at the end of May.

So, I’ve been poring over our calendar trying to decide what we’ll do this summer. We’ve got one trip planned (YEA!), and my kids are already asking me, “How many days until we go on our trip?” Add that to “How many days until my birthday?” (my almost 6-year-old) and “How many more days of school?” and you can see why I’m living in the future!

It may already be too late, but I’ve got to get on the phone with some of my mom maven friends who seem to know everything and find out whose kids are signed up for which camp or activity. Summer’s when I catch up with a lot of friends who I don’t see as often during the school year because they homeschool or their kids go to a different school. So, we try to coordinate our plans so our kids can play together while we hang out and gab.

I also try to take my kids to a pool somewhere at least three times a week. Honestly, this is not my idea of relaxation because my younger ones need me to get in the water with them. I don’t get to lounge along the side of the pool lost in a good book — I’ve got to be IN the water constantly. It’s fun when I find another mom with her kids there to talk to. But some days when we go to the city pool, I’m the only mom there — except for the day camp workers. So I end up playing Marco Polo and Ring around the Rosy with other people’s kids, and they hang on my shoulders — and I feel COMPLETELY worn out by the time we get home.

But I do this because my kids MUST know how to swim. We’re around water so much — a lot of people in our area live near lakes and ponds — and some people have backyard pools. Right now, I think only two of my kids are strong swimmers, so I’ve got to keep diligent about teaching the younger ones, which means lots of practice.

In giving all this some thought, here’s my news — I’ve decided to take a break from blogging over the summer. We’ll be on the go so much I won’t have time to be on the computer. I know this won’t be a big deal to those of you who’ve subscribed to me via Bloglines because you can tell when I’ve updated. But I’m very loyal to you — and I don’t want to suddenly slack off without giving you some warning! Mom 2 Mom Connection will be very quiet during the months of June and July. School starts back in early August, and that’s when I plan to get back to blogging.

Our Beth Moore Living Beyond Yourself Study will go for the next nine weeks and end on June 2. Sallie has her new Carnival of Beauty schedule posted on her site up until the end of May as well. The last topic is “Beginnings and Endings,” which I think is an appropriate way for me to end my first season of blogging. (By the way, my 6-month blogiversary was last week — 226 posts!)

Over the summer break, I even plan to turn off my comments so I won’t be obsessed tempted to check in. I’ve just GOT to. I want my children to remember all the fun summers they had growing up — and this is their childhood! Between going to the pool, library summer reading program, the park, ice-cream shop, vacation, and a couple of day camps they enjoy, my job as “special events coordinator” and “elite transportation service provider” takes up all my time!

Until then, I’m so excited I’ve got several interviews lined up with moms who’ve done outstanding things. This week, we’re going to be visited by a GRANDMOTHER who is out and about writing children’s mystery books that take place on islands, and she’s also a three-time award-winning playwright. I absolutely can’t wait for you to meet her. She’s AMAZING!

P.S. Don’t forget — those of you who like writing for the Carnival of Beauty. Today at 3 pm is the deadline on the topic of “Technology” over at MzEllen & Co. That’s a really interesting topic — I can’t wait to see what people come up with!

I have a cousin who once handed me her business card, a simple white rectangle, emblazoned in black letters with her name, address, phone number, and the descriptive phrase, “Domestic Goddess.” That made me laugh then, as it does now. She IS a wonderful cook and homemaker, and a world-class grandma. She sent me a letter recently with some pictures and included her new card, “Domestic Goddess, retired.” She’s a widow now.

I love her sense of humor. But I have to tell you I had a glimpse of a true domestic diva the other day when I flipped channels on our TV and saw Martha Pullen, sitting at her sewing machine, telling her audience the proper way to stitch white zig zag onto lace using the zig-zag stitch on a sewing machine.

Are you familiar with Martha Pullen? I used to subscribe to her magazine, Sew Beautiful, and she always wrote the most uplifting letter from the editor, complete with scriptures. She also has a program on public television called Sewing With Martha.

If you’re at all interested in sewing, you’ll love everything about Martha. Here’s how I first heard about her. I had a close friend a few years ago who was REALLY into heirloom children’s clothing. She talked about Martha Pullen this, Martha Pullen that every other sentence. Our first two children were the exact same age, so we spent a lot of time talking while our kids played. Finally, I admitted to her that I didn’t know how to sew — even though my mom had shown me a few simple things growing up. Sewing machines just scared me!

We saw an ad in the newspaper for sewing machines, and she said she’d help me pick one out. So we went shopping together, and I came home with a nicer one than the ad offered, but she assured me it was a good price. Then I went over to her house once a week, and she taught me how to turn the machine on and not be scared it would bite me, thread a needle and wind it around all these places on my machine so it would sew, trace and cut out a pattern, and make a little sundress for my daughter. It was full of all kinds of weird mistakes, but I took her picture wearing it, and it made me so happy that I made something!

Then we moved. Oh, how I missed that friendship. We moved to the country, and I didn’t have any friends for the first several months. So I tried to keep sewing to give myself something creative to do, and it gave me an excuse to call my old friend and tell her what I was making. Thinking back, I realize that’s what kept me trying to sew — I wanted to keep finding a reason to connect with her because the first thing she always asked was, “So, what are you working on?”

I finally discovered a store about an hour from my house that taught smocking and embroidery lessons, and I went and took a few classes. I was the youngest one in my class. It was me and a few sweet grandmothers — who were all excellent seamstresses. I kept stabbing my finger and bleeding on the fabric. I felt like I had two left hands, and I couldn’t keep up. It was so embarrassing to ask the simplest questions!

But this is all I had to do to keep myself occupied while we adjusted to our new town. Finally, we found a church where I made some friends with moms of young children, and I made a few friends who also liked to sew. One Easter, we all went a little crazy and bought a bunch of fabric. I taught one friend how to smock, and there were four of us who all made matching clothes for our kids. It was a fun time.

Those were simpler days for me — and who knows? Maybe someday I’ll get back into it. It really is exciting to make things with fabric and thread — and it can be a joy for young women to see their creativity blossom into something beautiful to wear. Right now, I DO NOT have the patience for it. That hobby requires keeping up with so much STUFF. (Fabric, notions, patterns, magazines with ideas, crafty this and that…)

Since God has blessed me with three daughters, I don’t want them to grow up being scared of a sewing machine like their poor mom. One of the best things my friend taught me is that even though babies and little girls will outgrow their dresses, dolls never will! So one day, I’d love to make doll clothes. Maybe that day will come when I’m a grandmother. What a happy thought!

For now, I’ll sneak a peek at the domestic queen herself, Martha Pullen, and see what she’s up to. And say a prayer for my friend who is on my mind today, who I still miss very much.

Our Beth Moore cyber study group has grown again — Lauren says we’re maxed out at 29 30 people. She’s once again provided us with new HTML to update our chart and blogroll. Thanks, Lauren!

Wow — what an awesome, life-changing week of intense Bible reading for me. I can’t wait to go see what everyone else in the group says about it. I worked on my homework as much as I could — but I still have to finish Day 5. I’m trying to keep up! And I don’t even have an excuse like Patricia, who says she got busy preparing for her interview with Rebecca St. James!

The whole theme of Living Beyond Yourself is based on the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. Beth Moore says some of us don’t have a lifetime to wait for these character traits to develop slowly and ripen. We need a change right NOW!

That’s me. Reading the Word keeps me connected to the Vine — the growing, living, overflowing Vine of Jesus Christ. If I’m cut off, I’ll die. I’ll get all brown and withery and crinkly, falling to the ground. Useless. Full of myself and not full of the Holy Spirit. Yes, Beth Moore is talking to me.

I could go through the homework verse by verse and tell you about 90 million things that leaped off the page into my heart — but that would take a week. Instead, I’ll give you a scenario of something that happened YESTERDAY in which the Holy Spirit got a hold of me and helped me to live beyond myself.

I’d scheduled a portrait sitting for my youngest daughter who turns one next week. This is supposed to be her six-month sitting. I had some trouble getting this done, can you tell? I decided to go to a chain portrait studio because my wonderful local photographer who I love very dearly has raised her prices, and I can’t go there very often unless she’s running a special.

I had to change this appointment three times because of various catastrophes, and I finally rescheduled it inadvertently during spring break — which meant I had to bring the whole crew with me. Now, this ordeal first involved my plowing through basement boxes to find the perfect-sized hand-me-down dress, washing and ironing it, bathing the baby and making sure she stayed clean, praying she wouldn’t get a bump or scratch before picture day — AND gathering all the other kids to load up and drive across town.

We showed up only five minutes late. ONLY!

When I walked into the studio “area,” the woman was sitting in front of the computer moniter on the phone. I waited for a minute or so, then she looked over at me and asked, “Are you here for something?”

“Yes, I’m here for a portrait sitting.” (Thinking: my baby! my baby girl is turning one! the last baby portrait!)

She sighed and said to someone in the phone, “I’ve got stuff to do. I’ll call you back.”

(So I guessed I was her “stuff to do.”)

My three older kids sat down quietly in the waiting area while we moved back to the portrait-taking area. I saw a beautiful child-sized white wicker chair, just like the one my other kids had their baby portraits made in. I asked her if we could use this for the picture.

“No, it’s the wrong size,” she snapped back.

“Well, I think it looks like a wonderful size. If you don’t mind, I’d love to use it for the picture,” I said.

“Not unless you want to get me fired for using the wrong size chair!”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t want to do that.” I began to feel a flicker of anger … seething. Why was she treating me this way? Did she have ANY idea how much effort it took to get me there? And how precious this last baby portrait sitting was to me?

She found a short, slippery wooden chair and plopped it on the white-carpeted stage. “This is the one we have to use,” she said.

Well, my daughter wasn’t happy about getting her picture made. Even though she looked like total Gerber Baby cuteness in her soft pink dress, she started crying. By now, my other wonderful favorite photographer would have been jumping up and down doing toe touches and waving feathers to get her to smile. But this lady was trying to use a talking stuffed animal that had a deep scary voice. And it wasn’t working.

So I reached over for another stuffed animal that had a jingle bell and started shaking it. Then the photographer glared at me, “M’am, you do your job, and let me do mine. Your job is safety. You watch to make sure she doesn’t fall. I’ll take care of getting her to smile for the camera.”

Can. You. Say. Angry.

I was angry. I clenched my teeth. I wanted to walk out and leave. I wanted to tell her that I’d done this dozens of times and not once have I had a crying baby!

But then something happened. As I felt those hot, smarting tears form in my eyes, the Holy Spirit took over and said, “Give her MY grace. There’s something behind the scenes going on in her life right now. She’s having problems with something or someone. Let it go, and give her grace.”

So I did. I let it go. I clapped whenever the camera flashed at the perfect moment of a brief between-tears almost smile. And I kept the atmosphere friendly by doing as I was told. Finally, when we sat down to look at the proofs, I told her what a great job she had done. Then I noticed up on the wall there were dozens of award certificates for photos.

“Did you take all those?” I asked her.

“I sure did,” she said.

“Well, you’re a wonderful photographer,” I said. “I can’t imagine all the work you put into getting those kids to smile.”

That was it. That was the connecting point. She SMILED and thanked me. I could visibly see her relaxing. I picked out my portraits and placed my order on the spot, even though my favorite studio would have given me weeks to look at actual proofs and decide. They weren’t perfect, but there were a couple of really good ones. And at least we got it done!

The lesson I learned here — it’s POSSIBLE to live beyond myself — to let God’s Spirit fill me and have me respond like He would. I’m still learning and growing, and I battle my impulses every day. (Hey, but we learned even Peter had a struggle every now and then.)

I’m not wearing a “What Would Jesus Do?” bracelet — but the more I study this Beth Moore homework, the more that question captures my every thought.

Addie	Heather*	Carol
M	Rach	Jeana
Jenn	Amanda	MamaB
GiBee	Boomama	Maria
Blair	Heather	Nancy
Janna	Flipflop	Robin
Sherry	Patricia	Tara
Lauren	HolyMama!	Faith
Christy	Eph2810	Karin
Leann	Rachel	Janice
This is a list of the women participating in the study and the links to their blogs. New postings on the study will be published for the next ten weeks, between Friday 8pm – Saturday 8am. Please feel free to visit each of us and comment. Everyone is welcome to participate in this discussion as we seek to live beyond ourselves. May God bless you richly from the hearing of His word.

OK, y’all. This doesn’t happen too much around here, but a few minutes ago the phone rang, and the caller ID showed “New York, NY.” As you know, my kids are on spring break, so I was afraid to answer the phone. Lots of background noise!

It was a call from Cecilia Fang, who is a producer with the TODAY Show in New York. For real! Last week, she’d sent me an email asking if I’d be interested in helping her with a series on mothering. I thought this might be a joke from one of my brothers-in-law, but I went ahead and wrote back and said, “Sure.”

So, she called here, and we chatted. I found out that I’m NOT the person she needs for this show … but maybe one of you are!

— Are you a mom who stays home to care for one or more children?

— Does your husband work away from home?

— Would you like to see your husband switch jobs with you for the day?

— Here’s the catch … Are you pregnant? If so, are you showing enough to where you LOOK pregnant?

If you’ve answered yes to these questions, you could be on the TODAY Show! This is not a joke. I checked into it a bit, and Ms. Fang has a blog and mentioned this request to her readers here.

I also found this on a message board for moms:

Hi there,
I’m a producer with NBC’s Today Show. I’m doing a special story on understanding each other, specifically husbands and wives when the wife is pregnant. I’m looking to shoot a story where we give the wife and pregnant mom a day off and have Dad know how it feels to be pregnant and a mom for the day.
I’m specifically looking for a couple that already has at least one child with another on the way. I would love to chat with any of you that are interested. Please email me at cecilia.fang@nbc.com if you are and I can explain more. This is a legitmate interview request from the Today Show.

Please spread this around to as many moms as possible because she needs somebody this week! And if one of you fits the role she needs and gets to be on TV, please let me know so I can say that I knew ya way back when, OK?

I know a lot of you out there are looking for some inspiration in the kitchen. With kids, it’s easy to fall into a cooking slump when the demands of shopping, preparing, and cleaning up after meals — day after day — can wear down even the most energetic mom (where is she?)

That’s why I’ve invited author and mom Susan Thacker of Texas to rejuvenate us with her awesome idea of sharing the mealtime madness with a friend or two. In fact, she wrote a book on this topic called Supper Swapping. Her story has already been featured on the Dr. Laura radio show, a homeschool magazine, several newspapers, and she’ll be highlighted in the June issue of Family Circle. Way to go, Susan!

If you’re from the Lone Star state, you can also look for her in the Texas insert of an upcoming Southern Living Magazine. So, we’re privileged to have a chat with this busy author!

Welcome to Mom 2 Mom Connection, Susan. I’m so glad you could stop in. OK, I must say I’m intrigued with this whole idea of supper swapping. Can you tell us a little more about it?

Hi, Heather. Supper swapping is when friends trade meals. You don’t necessarily eat together. It’s a concept that can be used by people who hate cooking because then they don’t have to cook as much. Or it’s for people who love cooking because then they get to try new recipes and share them. There are all kinds of benefits, including saving money, saving time, upgrading meals, and having a growing friendship.

Sounds like this would appeal to a lot of us — whether we like being in the kitchen or not. Can you tell us how you got started with supper swapping?

I was talking to my friend on the phone one day, and she asked me if I wanted to come over to her house and cook a bunch of food to freeze. I said, “Not really.” You see, I didn’t like to cook. Then I thought about it and said, “Hey, why don’t I cook for you early this week and then you cook for me later in the week?” She said, “O.K., What do you want to eat?”

I can still remember how hilarious it was when I took the meal over there, and her husband looked blankly at us like we were nuts. Heather, my husband acted the same way when she brought her meal to us.

That does sound funny — he probably wondered what in the world you two were up to! Do you have any thoughts on what it is that hinders many women from preparing home-cooked meals for their families?

That’s a huge question. Our whole culture is changing. More women work. Kids have more structured activities like sports and different lessons, and that’s a fact according to a study by The University of Michigan. So women are in the car a lot. I also think that we have access to more ready-made foods today. So it’s tempting not to cook.

I can relate to being in the car a lot. If we’re not careful, we can have activities planned for every night of the week. Do you have any tips on how moms can get kids involved in the kitchen?

Yes, I think we can nurture the love of cooking by first making the family dinner an event each night, so that children have a positive association with food. Young children will emulate their mothers as they play with pots and pans. As they get older they can help by washing vegetables and participating in menu planning.

Do you usually have a sitter when you have company over for a meal, or do you prefer kids to eat with your guests?

They eat with us. I’m a firm believer in date nights, but our home is centered around the family. So, when we have big dinners, everyone is there. The kids get excited about company because the food is more extravagant, the candles are set, and the house is actually clean!

Well, Susan, you’ve given us a real SMORGASBORD of ideas here. Do you have any last words to help inspire us to dish up a springtime feast?

Sure, here are three springtime tips:

1. Start small and enjoy — Only trade one easy meal a week with a friend who reciprocates at first. On the day you receive your meal, take the kids to the park instead of cooking!

2. Make your cooking day fun — Do some of the food prep while the kids are asleep the evening before so cooking can be relaxing. Entertain yourself while you cook. Open the windows, listen to music or a book on tape. Make snacks for yourself while you cook.

3. Serve dinner outdoors and make dinner an event — Linger at the patio table after dinner and let the kids play in the yard. Springtime gives us the opportunity to unplug and tune into family.

These are great ideas. I hope everyone who’s stopping in to read this today will also go visit Susan Thacker at her Supper Swapping website.

Susan will be back tomorrow to tell us more about how she contacted dozens of top chefs around the country to compile her book. And she’s even promised to share with us one of her favorite recipes from The Post Oak Grill in Houston. Sounds delicious!

Thanks for your responses to my post on Mommy Blogging — it was fun for me to hear back from you on why you blog. Someone said neighborhoods aren’t what they used to be — and that’s true. Except that now our neighborhood is the entire world, and I think that’s pretty cool. (Hello to whoever you are in Argentina who visited!)

I mentioned a few days ago how I’ve discovered the high/low game, which we play at dinner — several nights a week. I don’t know what my deal is this past week but I’ve been on a roller coaster — either feeling like I’m super high on top of the world, or like I’ve plummeted to the bottom of the ocean floor.

IT’S TIME FOR ME TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT EXERCISING.

I wrote it. So therefore I must do something about it. I always feel better and more even about life when I exercise. Maybe I need to go hang out at Blair’s blog and learn how to be consistent with charting my progress — which doesn’t exist right now. In fact, since I wrote my post on The Secret Pedometer Club, I’ve stopped wearing my pedometer because I never could get above 8,000 steps — even when I walked over an hour. And in the last two months, instead of losing those dreadful postpartum 20, I’ve gained 5 more!

But back to the highs. Indulge me a minute, and let me share with you the cute things my kids are into these days:

— I taught my 11-month old daughter to use the phone, that wonderful Fisher Price Chatter Phone (no batteries required) — and she promptly began putting it to her ear and calling her “Da Da” over and over. Already, Daddy’s Little Girl.

— My toddler son wants me to read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and No, No Jack several times a day, and he likes to walk around the house with a bucket of trains and a piece of wood, which he uses to make a bridge.

— The girls, 5 and 8, are into beauty parlor and like to brush my hair and read to me from their journals. When I put them in bed tonight, I noticed they had a row of baby dolls set up in their room in various cradles, high chairs, and a rocking chair. There was one lonely doll on the bed. “That’s the Mama, and she has five children,” they told me. I was almost afraid to ask, but I did. “Is she a nice Mama?” They said she was. (You never know.)

— My 9-year-old son is into magic card tricks. He has about four that he always wants to show me. “Pick a card, any card” is his most-repeated phrase around here. (And they really are cool tricks.)

So, that’s it. Those are my highs. The lows? I feel like I’m constantly spinning, being pulled different directions. Everybody around here needs something from me. And who is me? The other day I began to plummet, from the sheer exhaustion. I wrote in my journal, “Lord, I feel like I’m always spinning, not really getting anywhere, just spinning.” And I felt Him answer, “Pinwheels are beautiful to watch when they’re blown by the wind. Let my Spirit set you free.”

Ah … thank you, Lord.

Up next: a visit from a mom who has her act together in the kitchen. Though she admits it wasn’t always this way. Susan Thacker, author of Supper Swapping, will be here to tell us her story, and what it was like to be on the Dr. Laura radio show.

One brief announcement: Don’t forget to post on the topic of God’s Sovereignty for this week’s Carnival of Beauty hosted by Iris of Sting My Heart. The word sovereignty sounds deep and scary, right? Well, just tell us how God is big in your life! What does He mean to you? Some of you will probably come up with some great stuff — I’m looking forward to reading your posts!

I know there are over 30 million blogs out there, but I confess most of my favorites fall under the category of “Mommy Blogging.” I love reading what ordinary moms like me have to say about their days. Sometimes I think it’s truly fascinating that this blogging phenomenon has given us a voice — many of us are staying home stirring spaghetti sauce and raising our family — yet when you google a topic, our blogs rank up there as high as top news sites (especially those of us who post every day — Google seems to like that.)

So, I was fascinated to discover yesterday that Catez of All Things 2 All spent several days researching women’s blogs that were nominated for the Share the Love Blog Awards. She visited and read posts from 197 women’s blogs — wow! You’ll have to go read the details in her post, Share the Love: Demographics and Some Thoughts.

Here are the statistics:

No. of blogs I read: 197 (in 8 categories)
No. of blogs I didn’t read: 34 (in 3 categories)
Inaccessible: 3 (links didn’t work or bandwidth exceeded)

And here is how she categorized them:

Not Religious or No Religious Content
Christian (Protestant or Catholic)
Other Religious/Spiritual Beliefs
Mormon
Jewish
Unspecified

You can read her post to find out the numbers and percentages in each group. It’s very interesting! After all of her research, which I’m sure took dozens of hours, here’s what she discovered:

Most of the blogs I read didn’t have a lot about religion or spirituality. Of those that expressed a religious or spiritual belief the majority only made an occasional reference. The biggest theme, by a huge majority, was motherhood and what is called mommy blogging. I have said that before, but I think the demographics help to make the point better …

Thank you, Catez, for doing all this work! (I think this topic would make a great magazine article.) Do y’all find this as fascinating as I do? Why are mommies blogging? I’ve joined a few blogger mom groups lately — and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading essays on DotMoms — which expresses an extreme diversity of views on mothering. (Key word: diverse.) But I can’t get enough of reading about real-time motherhood — obviously!

One common thread I’m noticing personally — in many of the tag lines and throughout the posts — it seems like moms joke around about blogging to keep their sanity. I’ve always felt like I needed to write out my thoughts or I would go bananas. Maybe I’m not alone.

I’m curious — if you’re a mom and you blog, why do you do it?

We had a picnic yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed our Happy Meals from McDonald’s. At first, I was disappointed that we didn’t have cool boxes, just bags. Then I saw whose picture was on the bag, and I started telling my kids, “Look! This is Vonetta Flowers! I know who she is!”

Do you?

If you’re really into winter sports, you probably heard her name a good bit during the Olympics. In 2002, Vonetta Flowers won the gold medal in Salt Lake City in women’s bobsledding. Actually, she’s the first black athlete from any country ever to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics.

And she’s from Alabama! Now obviously, bobsledding is not a popular sport here in the Southeastern U.S.; we’re lucky to get an inch of powdery snowflakes a year — and then we use cardboard boxes or pizza pans as our makeshift sleds to slide down hills — whoop-de-do. You’ll just have to sneak over to Vonetta’s website and read how a girl from the deep South made the Olympic bobsledding team — this story will give you chills (um … that pun wasn’t intended, but it’s fitting — haha.)

In Torino this year, she and her bobsledding partner came in sixth place, but the even bigger news was that the Kleenex company surprised her by flying her mother and twin sons out to see her. TOTALLY unexpected on her part — and she was in tears when they were interviewed on NBC’s Today Show with host Katie Couric. (Can anybody say, “Please pass me a tissue?”)

I admit that I first heard her name from Terry Whalin, — can you see his name on her book cover? Y’all know I like reading author/editor Terry’s The Writing Life blog — in fact, some of you do too. He told us all about Running on Ice, and that’s how I knew to look for her story in Guideposts Magazine in the February issue.

There’s where I discovered the real story — Vonetta Flowers is a strong Christian, a wife, and a mother to twin boys! On her website, she includes her testimony and says, “God has blessed my family. I give Him the glory and honor.” One of her sons was born without the ability to hear, yet he underwent successful surgery in Italy last December, and now he can. Amazing.

Back to that McDonald’s bag — Here’s what it says:

“i push myself harder than i push my bobsled
i can hit 80 mph in less than a minute
i’m faster than any woman alive
i am Vonetta Flowers
i am golden

Vonetta Flowers
Olympic Bobsledder
Mom”

That last word there says it all. Sure, she made history by winning a gold medal in the Olympics. The first for her race. But I bet if you ask her which title she’s most proud of, she’ll tell you, “Mom.”

Uh huh. I’m lovin’ it too.