My mom was a single parent. She was my mother, a teacher and a best friend for me. She was the best at coming up with parties, and field trips.

We had a farm party, where we made a cake cow pie. We had placed fake flies on the ceiling fan and turning it on low to make it look as if they were flying over the cake. We brought in a plastic pool and placed some of my stuff animals around it.

 When mom started to home-school me, I would pick a country to learn about then we would have a party. We would dress up and cook a meal from that country.

Some of my fond memories of being home schooled are: Mom willing to learn Russian with me, taking a field trip to the beach early in the morning where I did my school work.

 When the movie series of Jurassic Park came out in theaters, we would go to the last one for that night and then go camping in our backyard. Some people thought mom was mean, but I enjoyed it very much.

 I loved to swim and growing up near the ocean, we could go very often. I wanted to learn to snorkel but mom likes to breathe the air easily, but she still learned how to snorkel with me.

 I never felt left out of anything. At night mom would make up bedtime stories or songs that I remember to this day. She’s always been there for all the hobbies I’ve done.  When I had the chicken poxes and couldn’t go outside during the day she would drive me to a place called the blowing rocks at night. We would even go for nightly drives for girl nights listening to the radio, or having girl talk. Now that I’m older, mom has been helpful to find jobs that I like. Plus she has encouraged me to start writing again.