Cheers to the moms of the world!

I hope all you moms out there are having a great day. Your kids should be letting you sleep in and your husband should have prepared something delicious for you to eat (mine made chocolate chip pancakes). This is my first official Mother's Day celebration. Dayven and I had a big debate about it last year. I told him I should be celebrating since I was about to become a mom, but he said you can't celebrate Mother's Day until you are actually a mom. I think that there are many ways to be a mom and today is a day to celebrate all the women in our lives. If you are a mentor, supporter, caregiver, guide, teacher or advice counselor to someone else, then you deserve recognition today too. My hat goes off to you. Being a mom is the most important job you'll ever have - it's the chance to shape a young life.

Be sure to tell your mom how much you love and appreciate her today, and every day. There is really no way to appropriately thank the woman who happily suffered through 9 months of morning sickness, indigestion and swollen ankles to bring you into this world, then cared for your every need, rocked you to sleep at 2am, loved you in spite of your temper tantrums (as a toddler, then again as a teenager), kissed your boo-boos, held your hair back while you barfed, supported you as you continued to repeat past mistakes resisting the urge to say "I told you so", shelled out money for unnecessary things you just "had to have", listened to you talk about how cool you are, stayed up late worrying about you while you were out and all the other things you put your mom through. I'm convinced you can't truly appreciate your mom until you become one yourself to know all that she's really gone through for you (and continues to go through). It is amazing the ways that being a mom changes your life.

Before I was a mom, I carried a small stylish purse that wasn't large enough to hold the contents of the Titanic. I wore clothing with labels that read Dry Clean Only. I ran endless errands, without thinking about the next nap time. I didn't have vomit stains on my shirt. I never thought about potential germs lurking on every conceivable surface (ok, I did, just not to this extent). I slept peacefully through the night, without stirring over every little whimper and sigh on the monitor. I never listened to songs with toot toot or bananaphone in the lyrics.

People always tell you about how much your life will change once you have a child and you immediately think about the physical, such as sleeping in late, losing your spontaneity and freedom. Once you have a child, you realize those things are pretty insignicant and that your life changes in much more profound ways. You may worry that your relationship with your husband will change, and it will, but not in the way you think. There is something so special and tender about watching a man gently hold his baby while feeding him or rocking him to sleep.
Now that I am a mom, I feel an instant bond with all other mothers, knowing that they have the same fears, hopes, dreams and love for their child that I do for mine. Everytime I hear about a tragedy involving a child or a story about a child who is sick with a terminal illness, my heart aches for the mothers of those children. Being a mother really softens you. I cry much more easily now - tears of joy, sadness, empathy. I'm constantly amazed and touched by this little miracle we've been blessed with. Sometimes I sit and rock my baby long after he's fallen asleep, just to listen to him breathing (even his snoring is charming). When he smiles at me, my heart just melts.

Before I was a mom, I never knew love so big...