a place called home

Home is where the heart belong to. so they said. a home is a place where we wanna be.a shelter from any unpleasure in life. Sometimes i just wonder, will a place called home to us will also be a home to our kids? And the home itself is it include us as a parent in it?.Do they treasure our presence or enjoy our absence?

this is the story i've read so many years back when i was not a mom yet but it always keep on dwelling in my mind now and then. So i dig the book and copy it here. its from the book: chicken soup for the mothers soul 2. here is the story:

The day i become mom

You cannot discover new ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore

The day i become a mom not the day my daughter was born, but seven years later. Up until that day,i have been too busy trying to survive my abusive marriage. I have spent all my energy trying to run a "perfect" home that would pass inspection each evening, and i didn't see that my baby girl has become a toddler.i'd tried endlessly to please someone who could never be pleasedand suddenly i realized that the years has slipped by and could never be recaptured.

Oh, i had done the normal "motherly" things, like making sure my daughter go to ballet and tap and gym lesson.I went to all of her recitals and school concerts, parent-teacher confrence and open houses-alone. I ran interference during my husband rages when something was spilled at the dinner table, telling her , "It will be okay , Honey, Daddy's not really mad at you," I did all i could to protect her from hearing then awful shouting and accusations after he returned home from a night of drinking.Finally i did the best thing i could do for my daughter and myself: I removed us from the home that wasnt really a home at all.

The day i become a mom was the day my daughter and i were sitting in our new home having a calm, quiet dinner just as i always wanted for her.We were talking about what she had done in school and suddenly her little hand knocked over the full glass of chocolate milk by her plate.As i watched the white tablecloth and freshly painted white wall become dark brown, i looked at her small face. It was filled with fear , knowing what the outcome of the event would have meant a week before in her father presence. When i saw the look on her face and looked down at the chocolate milk running down the wall i simply started laughing. I am sure she taught i was crazy, but then she must have realized that i was thinking " its good that your father is not here!". She started laughing with me , and we laughed until we cried. They were tears of joy and peace and were the first of many tears that we cried together.That was the day we knew that we were going to be okay.

Whenever either of us spills something, even now seventeen years later, she says " remember the day i spilled the chocolate milk?i knew that day that you had done the right thing for us , and i will never forget it"

That was the day i really become a mom. I discovered that being a mom isnt only going to ballet, and tap and gym recitals, and attending every school concerts and open house. It isnt keeping the spotless house and preparing perfect meals.It certainly isnt pretending things are normal when they are not. For me , being a mother started when i could laugh over a spilled milk.