Mom and the Cabin

          Mom was always a good sport about going to the cabin, but I wonder if she ever really liked it as much as we did.  It meant a lot of work for her. 
          First there was the shopping and planning ahead of time to make sure she had everything we would need.  It took an hour and a half to get to Payson from the cabin, so we didn't run into town often.  There was a tiny store in Young, which was only half an hour away, but they didn't have very much to buy, and it was expensive and sometimes of questionable freshness, (like the time we bought boxes of Cracker Jacks, only to find them crawling with weevils when we opened them up).  Mom tried to plan ahead and make sure she brought everything we would need with us to begin with.
           Then, there was the job of packing enough clothes and personal items for a family of six, then seven when Julie was born, and finally eight after Sharon came along.  Just bringing enough diapers and blankets and baby clothes was a daunting task.
            Once we got to the cabin Dad helped bring in the boxes and bags, but Mom had to unpack and put away all the groceries, clothes, and everything else we'd brought up with us.  But first she had to wipe down the kitchen counters and shelves, plug in the refrigerator and make sure it was clean, take the dust covers off the beds and make them up with fresh bedding, sweep the floors in case there were mouse droppings or bits of the crystalline mouse poison Dad always put out before we left, and generally clean up the cabin.  Of course, we kids each had our own little job to do, but getting the cabin ready to live in mostly fell on Mom's shoulders.
             After we got unpacked and settled in Mom got to relax and enjoy our vacation too, although it was still more work than being at home.  She never complained, though, and I know she liked having time to sit and read or paint, or do whatever craft she was working on at the time.  But time seemed to fly at the cabin, and it was never long enough before it was time to repack, re-clean, and head on back down to the Valley.  And then the work really began.
             Once we got home Dad and us kids unpacked the car and carried everything into the house, but it mostly got dumped on the service porch floor, where Mom got to sort through everything, ending up with piles and piles of dirty laundry for her to wash.  It only took the rest of us a few minutes to get back to normal life once we got home.  It took mom an entire day to clean all our clothes and get things back to normal.
            I never really realized until I was a mom myself how much work mom went to so we could go to the cabin.  She sacrificed so much to make us happy, and she never complained or acted like she didn't want to go.  I had a wonderful mother!