When my sons were in kindergarten, they completed a “homework” assignment every week; usually some craft that involved paper plates, glitter glue and sequins. On Fridays, when I volunteered in the classroom, I had the opportunity to view everyone’s “homework.”

It was a sight to behold. Elaborately decorated creations—works of art that I, in my wildest dreams, would never be able to achieve, no less my young sons. I strongly suspected that more than a few of the kindergarteners were receiving assistance from the mommy craft fairies.

So when I read about the pathetic little shoe box that Jeanne Marie Laskas decorated for her daughter’s Valentine’s party, I knew I would like this woman, should we ever have a chance to meet. In her memoir, Growing Girls: The Mother of All Adventures, Laskas writes:

“I strode into school like Cocky Mother with my shoe box wrapped in red paper with kitty stickers on it. Then I got to her room only to discover that all the other mothers had also remembered, but their boxes were bigger than mine. And more elaborate. One girl had a castle with a drawbridge and gumdrops on top. One boy had a volcano with candy worms on it. These were…valentine’s boxes?...I stood there with my little shoe box. So pathetic. So sad. Poor Sasha, having an underachieving mom like me…So, I got an F for Valentine’s Day. Or maybe a D-. The really sad part is I walked in that day feeling like an A.”

While I grinned, chuckled and cried my way through this delightful book about the foibles of being a mom, the parts that touched me most deeply were Laskas’s reflections about adoption. She and her husband adopted their two daughters from China, and Laskas intersperses nearly every chapter with stories about adoption.

She talks about bonding, about incorporating a portion of her girls’ Chinese names into their American names, about her daughter’s language disorder, and about how the entire family flunked out of Chinese language school. I love the words Laskas uses to summarize her goal for motherhood:

“If I have one overarching responsibility…I suppose it is in applauding them as they grow, unhindered, into the people they are aching to be.”

Laskas’s glimpses into life at Sweetwater Farm in Scenery Hill, Pennsylvania are a wonderful pick-me-up for any woman. Whether you’re the mother of boys (as I am), the mother of girls, or a mother-to-be, you’ll thoroughly enjoy Growing Girls.