Hi Dr. Laura, 

Today, my youngest daughter, dropped off her 2- and 4-year-olds with me.  I already was looking after my 6-year-old grandkid. After she left we opened the kids' Christmas presents from the other side of the family, played with toys, read books and then took a long walk. When we returned home, I was exhausted. I had pulled the two younger ones in a wagon. 

I started to prepare lunch for them, when I noticed the two lunch boxes, inside was the most organized and nutritional lunches! Much to my surprise I was very glad to see this as I really wasn't that prepared! Then I had this thought about my daughter. She is an amazing mother, wife, daughter and she's pregnant with their third child. She loves taking care of her family. Her husband is a police officer and a great husband, father and provider. When I looked at the packed lunches, I thought to myself, she is a professional mom. The more I thought about this, stay-at-home mom is a great title, but if someone was to ask her what do you do for a living, I thought a great response would be "I am a professional mom"! After all, being a real mom takes great ingenuity, patience, insight, forethought, planning, investigation, timing, budgeting, the ability to multitask, and every other kind of skill on a moment's notice, all without ever taking a vacation or sick day. I know a lot of professional moms that do what they do and look fantastic while doing it, I am in awe of them. You can see how much they love it, as do their families. I was a professional mom as well, but I can't say I was that organized and I lived in sweats, but it was the best thing I ever did. I loved it. 

Keep up the great work! Thanks for all you do and I can't wait for you to become a grandparent, it is the icing on the cake! 

Alana