Being the first born with three younger brothers following behind it would be a huge cliché to say that my mom is my best friend but that cliché falls true between my mother and my relationship. She is the strongest woman I have ever met in my entire life. Growing up I didn't fully understand why my mom was always planning trips for just us, wanting to send every moment with me and continuing to grow and develop our mother-daughter relationship even though at times I was resistant to it. Not until high school I fully understood why my mom was constantly trying to build our relationship, she had a horrible relationship with her mom. Some of the stories she told me seemed unreal and I was able to understand and appreciate our mother-daughter relationship more.
Since I was in fourth grade we have taken our own mother-daughter vacations. The trips were usually wherever I wanted to go, Florida, skiing, New York, Chicago and I cannot express how grateful I am for those trips. Especially since I have come to college so far away we aren't able to go on trips as often or see each other as often but she is still my best friend. Then when deciding where I want to relocate after graduation I have chosen to move back to Houston to be closer to my family come August and she can't wait.
My brothers are great boys that are growing into young men, being 19, 18 and 14 but they are defiantly a handful for my mom but she still continues to be involved in all of their activities so when we have a family of our own we will look back on all the great memories our mom gave us.
One of my favorite memories of growing up was the summer I had turned 5 and my brothers were 2 and 3. Our parents worked out of our house and my mom was becoming flustered with us. She gave us all the washable paint we wanted and let us go outside and paint the fence for hours. Of course our dad was mad but she wanted to let us do something that we would have fun doing, and keep us occupied.
She is such a strong and beautiful woman that I hope to be like when I have a family.
