= PARENTING HIGHLANDS ‘Community School holds ts annual plant gale this Saturday, May 6, 0 a.sn. to: 3:p.m: at 3150 Colwood, North Nan Conner. and Carly Brown show a elect so‘should you:'*: Hine is it soot mothe: of each day, Wasn’ that.a great day! blooms, for sale. - ‘Mothers niever forget tosend cards special messages. Will : you? LOE -I know; rm beginning t to ; sound as purr sweet as , ‘ some of those ¢-mails Tye" a been getting, but I have to - dmit; the power of maternal ’. instinct is something I hold in “awe and have learned to” respect through my experi- ences as a'son, a teacher and a. casy-going young women, thee have 2. .; developed into stecly-cyed, detern ed. forces ‘with which “to reckori in the face of chal” osed to their chil health or success. better + organized, and when someone needs time, she always manages to find it, _ regardless of how intersecting ali those time tables become. She is a master of time and people management, with no’: forraal courses to train her, but plenty of incentive to - improve her skills: Perhaps motivation is the defining characteristic of a _mother. She focuses clearly on--- giving her children the best: ible footing in life, Tegard- less of what it costs her per- sonally, o ; She i is prepared, to give up her figure (at least temporan: ly), and give up her. freedom (at least for two decades) bur’ . She is never prepared to BIVE up on her child.: Therein ties the downside, T suspect, of all that motherly - dedication. Rare is the night a: . mother can simply rest with- _ tional “heart” of most women, there is a special Place for chil- - ; “Once this place is opened, the entire "butlook of: a woman changes. ‘The single woman I took " to be my wife was a complete- ’ ly different being than the’ ‘mother I now share with my ’ family."And while her focus on “me is less intensive now than it was then, she seems to have mustered enough strength to ‘make each of us feel as though ‘we are Ber greatest: “vor i in > progress.” , Sure, she’s less neous, but she’s i ly “more stabilizing for the rest of us. Sure, she’s ‘more harried than before, managing .“auid- ple time tables, but she's also. out worrying about her chil- © dren, even after her children - * have | grown and left the home. The umbilical cord might be cut but the door to that spe- - fut place in'a mom's heart can ‘IT will call my mom on, ~ Mother’s Day and tell her I: love her, but'she’ll be more interested in knowing if we are all OKs The boys and I will cook. a breakfast and pamper their «: mom, but she’ll be focussed . on getting everything ready - for the family for the next week. That’s what moms do, and maybe that’s why there are more cards sold for Mother’s Day than for any other day of the year. Maybe we all feel a litde guilty we can’t be more like mom.*. -. still lots of ti get out there aad buy mom to get to her by Mother’s Day. Show her you Jearned something from her. Graham “Hoakey. is the. - “author. of Parenting'Is A Team Sport,