Mother's Day

Last night at bedtime, I sat in the rocking chair in Tate's room, holding my sweet, snuggly boy much longer than necessary. He's happy to be put in his crib awake and has no trouble falling asleep on his own, but I was enjoying the peaceful warmth of this little body resting on my chest and breathing in his sweet, fresh-bathed smell and thinking about what a gift it is to be a mom.

There are plenty of days when I'm counting down until bedtime, but there are also moments like that one that make me want to freeze time. I just fully appreciate and understand what a special privilege and honor it is to be raising these little people.

My sweet, quirky little Wyatt and the special bond we have. His his whole face lights up when he sees me at pick up after school. He yells "MOMMY!" in the most excited voice, like we're being reunited after being apart for a year. 

My Hadley - the imaginative, animated daydreamer. She always picks me a dandelion and says "Mommy, can you believe that dandelions are just weeds? But...they're so pretty!" I ooo and ahhh over it like the treasure it is. She approaches everything with such enthusiasm and appreciation. There is so much I can learn from her. 

My Tate, that meatball. I could eat him up. He is the happiest, snuggliest guy ever. All I have to do is make eye contact with him for those cherub cheeks to spread into the biggest grin. If I'm sitting anywhere near the floor, he walks right over and crawls in my lap for a hug. I don't remember any of my kids snuggling as much as he does. Dayven says we'd have three more if we could guarantee they'd be like him.

I'm so grateful every day that God trusted these angels with me and I have the pleasure of raising them, even when they're acting like orangutans.

Today, I'm also thinking about my Aunt Vicky, who lost a son this week. My cousin Jon passed away, after a 6 year battle with cancer, leaving behind a wife and three small children. No matter how old your kids are, you'll always be their mom and the heartbreak of losing a child is just too much to fathom. I'm thinking of her today and all the other moms who have outlived their kids, something a mom should never had to do.

Life is precious and short and all those other cliches we all say, but don't really know until something big hits us. It's a reminder to yell less, relax more. Let things go and don't sweat the small stuff. I just want to enjoy these little miracles in my life. I know the phrase that every random person in the grocery store or street corner seems to tell me is true - it will go by in the blink of an eye and they'll be grown before we know it.

Aside from all that, today was mostly just like any other day. I got up early to feed hungry kids, wiped a lot of bums and noses, cleaned a lot of messes and refereed some fights. It's all in a day's work. After breakfast, the kids proudly gave me the pictures they had made for me and Wyatt presented me with the gift he'd chosen for me earlier in the week. He picked it out at the Dollar Store all by himself and wrapped it so I wouldn't see it. It was some plastic flowers ("smell them mommy, they smell sooo good!") and a candle and a travel tube of whitening toothpaste! He could not have been more pleased with himself. It made my morning.

This week I also had Hadley's Mother's Day party at school. We ate snacks in the theme of the Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle. The fruit all had a hole in it, because the Caterpillar had "eaten" through it. The kids colored all the placemats for us and sang special songs they'd been practicing. My usually theatrical Hadley gets a bit shy during school performances, so she sat quickly in the front row with a vacant stare on her face, while intermittently picking her lips and piping up only at the very end. We got to hear her belt out the animated versions later at home. We sat with her girlfriends and their moms, which is always fun. She has a great group of girls in her class and I love seeing her with her friends. She tells me "I just love them so much!" It was a special morning for us.